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Delhi’s heavyweight election gets ruff: Intense polling on for Capital’s fat dogs
From LSR’s Sunshine to Miranda House’s Berry and Rohini’s Kutta Singh, there are fat doggos from across Delhi-NCR who have been pitted against each other.
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Dare you call that lovely four-legged munchkin of your neighbourhood as fatso ever again! Because he/she is the one that many are rooting for, to bring laurels to the colony. Meet the doggos of Delhi’s streets who are having a political moment of their own as they get featured in polls for the first time ever. Wondering which polls are these since the assembly and council elections are both far from their due date? Well, the answer is the popular ongoing competition on the Instagram page, Fat Dogs of Delhi (@fatdogsofdelhi) that has triggered a campaign-style support for precisely 64 contenders.
What’s the competition?
Running online since September 24, the polls have serious contenders, as in dogs, from across the Capital and even NCR, who have been featured in the IG polls after their humans submitted their picture, name, and the area of their location. But that’s not all. The entries have been encouraged to submit campaign pamphlets too. Meanwhile, the competing dogs are undergoing multiple rounds of voting scheduled in phases included the quarter-finals that completed on September 27, and the semi-finals that are scheduled for today (September 28). After these, one dog will be eventually crowned the winner at the grand finale on September 29; the date when the voting ends.
Who all are contesting?
A tough competition is being witnessed between Sunshine from LSR College, Lajpat Nagar and Berry from Miranda House, North Campus. But not all bouts had a nait-biting finish such as the one between Chonku from Kamla Nagar and Chaand from Moolchand Metro where Chaand was leading with a huge margin of votes. But, throughout, who has caught the attention of a surprisingly large number of voters is Kutta Singh from Rohini, whose followers are trying their best to intensify the fight as they just can’t afford losing it to Gajinder from Vasant Kunj.
How to cast your vote?
The polls are being conducted through Instagram Stories. The time slot for each round of voting opens in the afternoon, and remains available for 24 hours. As the competition moves through the elimination rounds, several dog lovers are continuing to rally for their favourite contenders. Some are even putting up dedicated videos to call for more votes, just in time before the finale.
Whose brainchild is this?
So, who exactly is behind Delhi’s viral fat-dog election? We found her. And she turns out to be a Delhi University student. “I have had this page for more than a year now, but it blew up only recently... Don’t know about the Fat Bear Week abroad, and my idea for the competition is not inspired by it. Coming to Delhi from Nagpur (Maharashtra), I hadn’t seen dogs that are looked after by neighbourhoods together and have a name that a lot of people also know them by. So I took a cue for the contest when I saw people getting pretty active voting for mutuals on X, as part of OOMF (One Of My Followers) — where a field of 64 participants is the gold standard for such tournaments. About a week ago, when someone sent me a photo of their dog requesting if I could post it, I got an idea to run this competition. At that time I knew posting it would garner a sense of community, but didn’t know it would turn into something so massive for dog lovers across the city. Now, I’m receiving so many loving DMs but these also include hate messages where men are accusing me of intentionally posting only those entries that come from women. To those who are sending in messages, I must say: please don’t send AI-generated pamphlets or videos,” says this final-year student of Journalism (Hons) at DU, who wishes to stay anonymous.
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