Advertisement on sorry state of Maharashtra withdrawn

MUMBAI: An angry old farmer in dim light complains of how under the Congress and NCP government more than 50,000 farmers have committed suicide. He speaks of how there is no water to grow crops and complains of an unsympathetic administration.

The farmer then ends by saying, ‘arre kuthe anun thevla ahe Maharashtra mazha’.

This aggressive television campaign by the BJP, the tagline of which screams ‘kuthe anun thevla ahe Maharashtra Mazha’ (where have you brought my state to’, a comment on the state suffering under the Congress-NCP rule seems to have boomeranged on the party. The BJP has apparently withdrawn the campaign as both the Shiv Sena and MNS have taken umbrage at the blatant ‘insult’ to Maharashtra. The two parties have been claiming that the BJP is deliberately trying to portray Maharashtra as a backward state over Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.

A section of the BJP leaders felt that while the ad campaign was too aggressive, it was being perceived as ‘negative’ and as such could hurt the image the party wanted to project.

Another fallout of the campaign is the jokes on the tagline that have gone viral. For instance, in a social networking site some one put up a picture of a restaurant in Nashik called Maharashtra Mazha with the line ‘Look, we have found Maharashtra. Here it is!.’ Other messages on social networking sites castigated the BJP for taking an advertisement that shows the state in poor light. The party that had been running different variations of the ads has now suddenly stopped airing it and in its place the BJP has been running a different ad campaign which talks of how the party would bring an era of prosperity and progress if voted to power.