To overcome the stifling restrictions put on them by the Election Commission, candidates in the fray are coming up with novel ways to catch the eyeballs of the voters and media. With fear of becoming a target of the poll observers for overshooting their expenditure limits, candidates are finding new ways to reach out to the voters. Folk artistes have always added colour to the campaigns in the earlier polls, but this season candidates have ignored them for the gadgets.
Hi-tech campaignThe big attraction in the processions of the YSR Congress (YSRC) campaign was a remote-controlled tetra-copter with a party flag mounted on it. The flying toy, which was a great crowd-puller, was a bigger hit with the children then with the voters.
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The Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate for Vijayawada Central Constituency Ch. Babu Rao put a model of a house on his head during the campaign to highlight the party’s promise to provide housing for all eligible persons. While Mr. Babu Rao came up with the antic to highlight an item on the party’s poll manifesto, the other candidates transformed into various types of hawkers and vendors to attract the media.
Some candidates have posed as vegetable vendors on one day or were selling tender coconuts the other. YSRC Vijayawada Parliamentary constituency candidate Koneru Rajendra Prasad took pains to show how BC-friendly his party was.
He hawked fish on one occasion and even donned the role of a toddy-tapper. He chopped, with surprising degree of felicity, the Palmyra fruits to extract the soft kernel.
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Similarly, Congress candidate for Vijayawada LS seat, Devineni Avinash put aside his regular macho image and made dosas at a mobile eatery. Telugu Desam candidate for Penamalur Assembly Constituency Bode Prasad tried his hand at a potter’s wheel.