Political parties go all out to woo devotees

Put up flexies with larger images of themselves than the goddess

Congress and YSR Congress leaders vie with each other to extend peopleDasara greetings through flexies in Vijayawada. Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Leaders of political parties have gone all out to greet devotees visiting the Kanaka Durga temple using vinyl flexies.

In some areas, the leaders vied with each other and covered junctions and dividers with flexies having pictures of goddess Kanakadurga and themselves to greet. But unfortunately the size of the faces of the political leaders on the flexy was conspicuously larger then the images of the Goddess provoking the ire of some devotees.

The flexy war was fought with a great deal of ferocity at the foot of the Indrakeeladri hillock. The flexies of Vijayawada West MLA Vellampalli Srinivas with large images of Chiranjeevi and the flexies of TDP leader Budha Venkanna carrying large images of his own face and that of former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu dominated the Canal Road and the flexies on Indrakeeladri hillock.

The devotees found an arch near the Canal Road Ganesh temple with the pictures of several Congress leaders because it completely eclipsed the Ganesh temple.

In other parts of the city the leaders, many of them former corporators, earmarked their territories with flexies. On one side of BRTS Road Vijayawada Central MLA Malladi Vishnu and former corporator and YSR Congress leader P.Gowtham Reddy vied with each other to cover every available space with flexies. On the opposite side of the road former corporator V.Lalitha and her husband Kishore put up flexies with their pictures.

Even a cursory glance at the flexies will reveal that their ulterior motive was not to convey Darasa greetings to the public.