HYDERABAD: From coming up with out of the box ideas, themes, showcasing culinary skills, staging streetplays, and much more, the candidates have made every possible effort to seek votes as campaigning draws to a close on Tuesday.
While candidates making dosas or mirchi bajjis or ironing clothes has been seen once too often, morning walks and visiting temples has caught on big time in this election. Irrespective of party affiliations, a majority of contestants took to the ‘fitness mantra’ by meeting walkers in parks, colonies and gyms.
Mahbubabad TRS Lok Sabha candidate Maloth Kavitha serves toddy to people during her campaignA streetplay with a rap number “I’m with you, don’t bother” staged by TRS drew a lot of attention. Wearing masks of Congress candidate A Revanth Reddy, who is testing his luck from Malkajgiri, and AP CM Chandrababu Naidu, the troupe staged the cash-for-vote episode on roads. TRS also came up with radio jingles with people from across India working in Hyderabad speaking about how they feel about the city and its development.
For BJP’s Secunderabad candidate Kishan Reddy, party workers performed a flash mob on the streets. On social media, videos of actor Balakrishna, who is seeking a reelection from Hindupur, went viral. In one of the videos, he threatens a journalist with dire consequences for taking his video and apologises later. In the latest video, the actor runs after a supporter for taking a selfie with him and beats him up even as his supporters chant ‘Jai Balayya.’ A video of Naidu has also gone viral with him bowing repeatedly at a poll rally pleading with people to vote him back to power. In another video, he threatens saying Hyderabad will lose its brand value if anyone tries to play mischief or meddle with him, in what could be seen as a threat to TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao who had promised a ‘return gift’ to Naidu for his role in
Telangana assembly polls.
YSRCP’s ‘bye bye Babu’ caught attention with Sharmila making the slogan popular bidding goodbye to Naidu and welcoming Jaganmohan Reddy as next AP CM.
NRIs perform a yagna for Nizamabad MP and TRS candidate Kavitha KalvakuntlaTRS NRI supporters, who flew down from UK and US, carried out a door-to-door campaign in Nizamabad. “We also performed a yagam for the victory of Nizamabad MP Kavitha,” NRI TRS UK secretary Chada Srujan Reddy said.
Sushil Rao is Editor-Special Reports, at The Times of India, Hyde...
Read MoreSushil Rao is Editor-Special Reports, at The Times of India, Hyderabad. He began his journalism career at the age of 20 in 1988. He is a gold medalist in journalism from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Arts College, Osmania University, Hyderabad from where he did his post-graduation from. He has been with The Times of India’s Hyderabad edition since its launch in 2000. He has also done an introductory course in film studies from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and also from the Central University of Kerala equipping himself with the knowledge of filmmaking for film criticism. He has authored four books. In his career spanning 34 years, he has worked for five newspapers and has also done television reporting. He was also a web journalist during internet’s infancy in the mid 1990s in India. He covers defence, politics, diaspora, innovation, administration, the film industry, Hyderabad city and Telangana state, and human interest stories. He is also a podcaster, blogger, does video reporting and makes documentaries.
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