BJP hijacks SP-Congress slogan in UP

New Delhi: The popular number from the Salman Khan starrer Sultan ‘Baby ko bass pasand hain’, adopted by the SP-Congress as its election anthem as ‘UP ko yeh saath pasand hain’ is now being coveted by the BJP.

Earlier accused by the SP to have “copied” its election manifesto, the BJP has now gone ahead to use the SP-Congress slogan to its own advantage and interpretation. Tweaking the word “saath” (alliance) to numerical 7, the BJP has now come up with a similar slogan, and a poster screaming — ‘UP ko yeh 7 pasand hain (UP loves these seven)’.  

The “seven” leaders shown on the saffron poster include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president Amit Shah, Union ministers Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra, UP state unit president Keshav Maurya and saffron MP Yogi Adityanath.

BJP poster

The idea of the poster reportedly came from the cult western film — The Maginificient Seven. Like this 1960 film, where an oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes, The Maginficient Seven led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are trying to rescue Uttar Pradesh from the “opression” and “lawlessness” of the successive regimes (read SP and BSP)”, a BJP leader said. 

The poster has been sent to the BJP’s election committe for approval. The party, in it’s election theme song for UP election, ‘Main kamal khilane aya hun’ has used former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, one of the tallest leaders of the party, to woo the electorates. The other party propaganda video and the number sung to the tune of ‘Yaar dildar tujhe kaisa chahiya’ being played and screened across the state is ‘Jaat paat se upar ki sarkar chahiye, bjili sadak, paani harbar chahiye, sabka vikas sabka pyar chahiye’.

The party has also released folk song videos — ‘UP ki sambhalo naiyan, sun babu sun bhaiya, laj bachalo iski, sun bahena sun bhaiyan’, exhorting the rural UP to vote for the BJP.

The BJP slogan projecting the PM as the face of the party is ‘Do baaten kabhi na bhool Narendra Modi aur kamal ka phool (Do not forget two things — Modi and the lotus)’. Of course, the ancient election slogan ‘Galin galin mein shor hain...’ has been re-packaged with new words. The latest version is ‘Galin galin macha hain shor, janta chali bhajpa ki aur (There’s a noise in the lanes and bylanes, people are moving towards the BJP).” Claiming that this time the party will bag 300 of the 403 Assembly berths, the BJP’s posters scream- “Na ekai, na dehai, pura do-tihai (The BJP will get two third)”. And of course, how can ‘development’ factor stay away from saffron sloganeering — ‘Jan jan ka sankalp, parivartan ek vikalp (People have promised to usher in a change)’.