Chandigarh: With Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its main rival in the state, the Congress, hobnobbing with one another as part of the INDIA bloc that is preparing to take on the BJP at the Centre in 2024, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is gearing up to play the role of the principal Opposition in Punjab.
Last month, the party launched a campaign on its social media handles that seeks to take on the AAP with attacks on Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and party convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
The campaign contains, among other things, a parody of the superhit TV reality show Bigg Boss, which is released twice a week.
The one-minute offering, titled ‘Biig Boss’, is a compilation of speeches and statements of AAP leaders that the SAD alleges are either “complete lies or half-baked truths”, along with news reports about the AAP government’s functioning.
“The theme of the one-minute compilation is that Arvind Kejriwal is the ‘Big Boss’ who is actually running the state using a remote control while Bhagwant Mann is merely his puppet,” said the campaign in-charge, who didn’t want to be named.
“Every compilation begins with the same sound-effect as the one in the original series on television. The sentence ‘Bigg Boss chahte hain (Bigg Boss wants)’ booms loud when the inhabitants of the Bigg Boss house are given a task. Similarly, here Kejriwal gives certain tasks to Mann who is then expected to carry them out,” he added.
The latest episode of ‘Biig Boss’ was released by the SAD Monday and was the fourth in the series. It shows Arvind Kejriwal asking Mann “to hire his favourite officials from Delhi to various positions in Punjab”.
Apart from ‘Biig Boss’, the SAD’s social media handles have been highlighting news items, Right to Information replies and photographs critical of the Punjab government. “Every day, more than 20 to 25 such posts are created and published,” said the campaign in-charge.
On Thursday, posts related to drug overdose deaths and illegal mining in Punjab, along with news of alleged lathi-charge on teachers in Sangrur, were put up.
“Apart from this, we have started a new feature — a daily interview with a SAD leader in which he discusses various newspaper reports and the takeaway from them. The discussion is sprinkled with what is happening in Punjab, almost like an overview of the situation that is developing in the state under the AAP government,” said the in-charge.
The social media campaign also covers Akali Dal events in various parts of the state. On Thursday, Harcharan Bains, who was media adviser to the late Punjab CM and SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, shared several details about him.
The party, according to senior leaders, has also instructed its workers to go around urban and rural areas and check government school buildings, hospitals and mohalla clinics, which the AAP government claims to have brought major changes in. Videos of Akali workers checking these facilities are also shared almost every day.
On Thursday, a video purportedly of drugs being sold on a village road in Punjab was released by the SAD on its Facebook page.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Together in INDIA, not so in Punjab? State Congress leaders accuse AAP of witch-hunt