Parivar videos in Karnataka seek answers from Congress ministers

Videos, three to six minutes long, highlighting failures of ministers in the Congress government in addressing their constituencies’ problems, are doing the rounds on social media. The purpose is to whip up support for BJP and pick holes in the ruling party’s development narrative.

CM Siddaramaiah (Varuna), DK Shivakumar (Kanakpura), water resources minister MB Patil (Babaleshwar) and Bengaluru development minister KJ George (Sarvagnanagar) have been picked up for the videos in the first round. More are in the offing, say those involved in their making.

The makers claimed that the video on Shivakumar has received over one lakh hits on Facebook, while that on Siddaramaiah got over 50,000 hits.


The videos, titled ‘Shaasakare Lekka Kodi (Legislators, please give account’), show camera crew approaching people from the ministers’ constituencies and asking them about development projects taken up by the leaders in their home constituencies.

“The idea is to generate a wave of opposition against the Congress on the development front, considering BJP is citing development as its primary poll plank,” said a person associated with the making of the videos, which are being circulated on WhatsApp groups. “Corruption”, “seasonal” visits of the leaders and “zero development” are the oft heard complaints from the constituents.

“The local MLA has stakes in almost all quarries in the constituency. During one such quarrying work, an ancient temple which would see many visitors from Kanakpura, was completely destroyed,” say a few locals in the video on Kanakpura.

The video on Babaleshwar focuses on water scarcity. “The MLA came seeking votes, but since then he has not even shown his face,” claims a local.

The Varuna video shows a dilapidated school building without toilets. “Let us see how they come back to us and seek votes. They haven’t even provided basic amenities to the people of Varuna. We have not seen a worse chief minister,” says a local.

The videos will be used aggressively in BJP’s social media campaign, especially in WhatsApp groups, Facebook and Twitter accounts of the party’s supporters .

BJP sources, however, said the party has nothing to do with the videos and they have been created by “associates” with inputs from Sangh Parivar affiliates.