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Punjab assembly elections: Selfie vans, street plays add flair to election campaigns
Ahead of the Punjab assembly elections, political parties are using street plays and mobile selfie vans to highlight past achievements, polls promises and draw mass attention to their election campaigns
With just two days left for campaigning for the upcoming state assembly elections to end, candidates are making a final push to sway votes in their favour.
To garner support for their candidates, political parties have also gone all out by staging street plays, hiring mobile vans for campaigns and even hosting social events to pull more voters.
Members of the Congress party have hired dance and theatre troops to act out sitting Mohali MLA Balbir Singh Sidhu’s achievements in forms of short plays at local markets.
A total of five troops have been hired to highlight the work done by the former cabinet minister in the last five years through these performances.
Congress’ media in-charge Sanjeev Garg said the artistes, through their plays and dance performances, highlight the achievements of the Congress candidate, adding that the strategy had received a good response from the public. He added that the artistes perform eight plays in a day at different places across Mohali and nearby villages.
Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (AAP) have all also hired ‘selfie vans’ to draw in voters for face-to-face conversations.
Speaking about the novel campaigning strategies, AAP’s media in-charge Phoolraj Singh said, “In the beginning, our volunteers performed the plays in the markets, but now we are more focused on door-to-door campaigning. Our mobile vans, highlighting our future plans for Mohali are making rounds in the markets and other areas.”
The vans also feature the party primary campaign slogan “Ek mauka Kejriwal nu”.
SAD’s Mohali candidate Parvinder Singh Sohana, meanwhile, said, “We have around 10 mobile selfie vans in all parts of the city that also feature our ‘Vikas kitta hai, vikas karanga’ slogan.”
Sanyukt Samaj Morcha’s (SSM) Mohali candidate Ravneet Brar, on the other hand, said he believed in the more traditional campaigning methods: “We are only focusing on the door-to-door campaigning and ever since my candidature has been announced, we have covered most of the area.”
Both Congress and AAP have even put up advertising balloons at their offices, both of which are on the Airport Road, within 100 metres of each other and the BJP and SSM offices.
The state goes to polls on February 20 and the results will be declared on March 10.
