New Delhi: Ahead of the Delhi assembly elections, a ‘Pushpa movie-style’ poster war has erupted between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the national capital.
The BJP launched a campaign Saturday and put up posters with the tagline ‘Ab nahin sahenge, badal ke rahenge’ (Now we won’t tolerate it, we will bring change), targeting the AAP over alleged corruption and misgovernance. The BJP also released a poster with a picture of AAP national convenor and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal with the caption: ‘Kejriwal’s web of scams, which includes liquor, mohalla clinic, hawala, security, ration, panic button, sheeshmahal, medicine, Delhi Jal Board, classroom and CCTV scams’.
Hitting back at the BJP, the AAP shared on X Saturday a Pushpa-style poster of Kejriwal standing with a broom over his shoulder and with the tagline ‘Kejriwal jhukega nahi’ (Kejriwal will not bow down).
At the bottom of the poster, “4th term coming soon” is written.
फिर आ रहा है केजरीवाल…💯 pic.twitter.com/S6Jo48rEJz
— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) December 7, 2024
Reacting to this, the Delhi BJP Monday shared a poster of state president Virendraa Sachdeva sitting on a chair in Pushpa-style. The poster had the tagline ‘Bhrashtachariyon ko khatam karenge, rappa rappa’ (will eliminate the corrupt, rappa rappa).
The 2021 film Pushpa has a famous dialogue by actor Allu Arjun: “Agar meri bachchi ko kharoch bhi aayi to main sabko kaat dalunga, rappa rappa” (If anyone tries to harm my child, I will slaughter everyone).
भ्रष्टाचारियों को खत्म करेंगे रप्पा-रप्पा! pic.twitter.com/3waGUaVFwl
— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) December 9, 2024
Delhi BJP to put up more posters targeting AAP
According to sources in Delhi BJP, the party will be putting up more posters across Delhi targeting Kejriwal and the AAP in the coming few days. Delhi BJP has also been holding a number of programmes and demonstrations to target the AAP government.
While the BJP’s parivartan yatra has been postponed, the party is launching a series of corner meetings from Wednesday targeting women and youth. “A total of 3,891 meetings will be held between 11 and 22 December. We are hoping to conduct at least 300 meetings every day. The idea is to reach out to people and convey to them what the party intends to do if voted to power,” a senior BJP leader, who wished not to be named, told ThePrint.
The state unit is keen to field former MP Parvesh Verma from the New Delhi assembly seat to give a “tough” fight to Kejriwal, who has represented the constituency since 2013.
With the AAP releasing its second list of candidates for the assembly elections, a section in the BJP has also requested the central leadership to announce the first list of candidates for the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections by the end of the month.
The BJP has had a successful run at the parliamentary level in Delhi, wresting all of the national capital’s seven seats in 2014, 2019 and 2024. However, assembly results have been disappointing with the party currently accounting for just eight of the city’s 70 MLAs.
The AAP won 62 seats in the last elections held in February 2020.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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