Humour king Jaspal Bhatti is not the only person using the Lok Sabha elections as an excuse to have some serious fun.
Humour king Jaspal Bhatti is not the only person using the Lok Sabha elections as an excuse to have some serious fun. The political parties contesting the elections are at the receiving end of a plethora of jokes, satires and parodies, courtesy the citizens of the country.
Emails, online communities, and messages via the internet and SMS are being sent aplenty. On the other hand, the parties and their candidates themselves are taking on their opponents in a rather humorous manner, through parodies and witty, and amusing, remarks.
Bhatti had recently decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections, naming his party the Recession Party in honour of politicians' inability to rein in the economic slowdown; it is offering tickets only to comedians to contest the elections.
An online portal has listed ten things that would happen if Sonia Gandhi becomes the prime minister of India. Entries on the list include “all vada pav gaadis and stalls will be selling pizzas and pasta” and “all Sindhi people will receive promotions since she thinks they are all Italians (Kotwani, Multani, Vaswani… resemble Mussolini, Gianini, Benini etc… Kulkarni also has a fair chance).”
The joke literally seems to be on the politicians, as few of them have been spared. A joke on the prime minister goes: “A man asked Manmohanji, why are you going for a walk in the evening and not in the morning? Manmohan Singh replies: “Arey bhai, I am PM, not AM.”
Union home minister P Chidambaram is also on the list. In light of the 'shoe' incident, there is a witty one-liner that says “if Chidambaram becomes finance minister again, the budget will be a shoestring budget.”
The fact that the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Lok Sabha elections are coinciding has not been overlooked. A cartoon on a website shows the secretary of a political party advising a party leader, saying, “We must go in for IPL advisors and planners to make our party more popular and financially sound.”
The candidates themselves have joined the bandwagon, not missing a chance to aim sarcastic comments at each other. Narendra Modi recently had a war of words with Priyanka Gandhi over the topic of age, with 'budhiya' and 'gudiya' flying across the dais.
The 'Jai Ho' versus 'Bhay Ho' incident was another such. While the Congress bought the rights to the Slumdog Millionaire song and made a video of it, the BJP countered this by releasing a video based on the same song, albeit named 'Bhay Ho'.
Political parties are also using parodies of popular songs, including some with a touch of folk songs, to woo voters. Even the election commission is using parodies of film songs to encourage voting. A parody of 'Pappu can't dance saala' from Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, released by the Delhi state election commission, has struck a chord in several states.
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