BJP turning up poll heat, 2,000 hoardings to fill skyline

LUCKNOW: ‘Ab Aur Nahin Sahenge’ (we will tolerate it no more) slogan and a 10-minute film titled ‘UP ki kahani’ to attack the Akhilesh Yadav government are centrepieces of BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

Senior party leaders said it will be BJP’s biggest campaign for any state. “UP is make or break for us,” a party functionary in Lucknow said.

Despite a wavering public mood over demonetisation, the saffron party is pulling back no punches. It plans to erect more than 2,000 hoardings with ‘Ab Aur Nahin Sahenge’ tagline across the state. Last week, it rolled out some 400 video vans to screen the film in all constituencies.



The film shows a young woman saying “Darr bana rehta hai” (the fear is always there) to lament the law and order situation and features the sharp exchange between the CM and Samajwadi Party state president Shivpal Singh Yadav on stage when the latter said, “CM jhooth bol rahe hain” (CM is lying), and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav saying on stage that “boys commit mistakes” like rapes. “Can women be safe in UP when the party chief says so?” the young woman in the video says, adding that there was fear during the time of BSP rule as well. A man in chaste Awadhi dialect concludes: “UP ka Bantadhar. UP Mein nil Batte Sanata” (UP is in ruins).

The party is also releasing two songs, including one by Kailash Kher to encourage UP people to tell BJP their ‘Mann ki baat’ for an upcoming manifesto. It is also making arrangements to telecast live all campaign speeches made by PM Narendra Modi across the state.

The slogan, ‘Ab Aur Nahin Sahenge’ improves on its earlier slogan ‘So Rahi Sarkar’, and is derived to show frustration among people to not tolerate wrongdoings any more, a party leader said.

“So the new slogans say: ‘Mahilaon pe Aaye Din Atyachaar, Roz Hatya, Aphaaran aur Lootpat, Zaminon pe Kabza aur Vasooli, Berozgaar Yuva Palayan ko Majboor – Ab Aur Nahin Sahenge’,” the leader said. The party will also retain the running slogan, ‘Saath Aayen, Parivartan Layen’. To scale up the campaign, BJP last week placed ‘Akansha Peti’ (expectation box) at nearly 15,000 locations with high footfalls, including private retail outlets and malls in leading cities, to get ideas from people about demands.

“Some 86,000 people have already dropped their demand postcards in these boxes. A missed call number launched by UP BJP is getting 24,000-30,000 missed calls daily with our call centre contacting these callers for their feedback. Compared to social media pages of other parties, BJP Facebook page gets far more activity and received 83 lakh impressions just in last one week. We have featured over 400 videos there,” a party functionary in Lucknow said.

A war room in BJP headquarters monitors the four Parivartan Yatra Buses and GPSfitted 400 video vans doing rounds.

At the BJP office in Lucknow, a picture of Bhim Rao Ambedkar is placed next to party ideologues Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya to buttress its claim of caring for the Dalits.