Hyderabad city has been painted pink and saffron with party flags and hoardings of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is holding its national executive meeting over the weekend. Each party has put up cut-outs in support of its leaders and hoardings criticising those of the other.
Photographs of people posing in costumes and masks from the web series Money Heist on the streets near railway stations and banks emerged across the city on Saturday. The posters in their hand read, “We only rob banks. You rob the whole nation. #ByeByeModi”. Similar, large hoardings put up across the city are now going viral on social media.
The official Twitter handle of the Telangana Youth Congress also shared a similar hoarding with the faces of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and his son and minister K T Rama Rao. “The poster is a reflection of the looting of the two governments. #TrsBjpDhosthi,” read the tweet.
Taking potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, TRS leader M Krishank tweeted a photograph of a hoarding advertising “Achhe Din biscuits”–a reference to the BJP’s 2014 election campaign slogan promising good days. The hoarding read “Modi Ji’s favourite biskit”.
It all started a few days ago when the BJP placed a hoarding outside its state headquarters displaying a countdown for the chief minister to quit, with the tag line “salu Dora, selavu Dora (enough, sir; goodbye, sir). This was seen as an effort to energise the cadre in the run-up to the top party meeting being held in the city after 18 years.
Soon, huge hoardings of Modi with the hashtag “Bye Bye Modi” were seen across the state. Reportedly put up by TRS supporters, they questioned the prime minister over unemployment, demonetisation, pandemic, agrarian crisis, economy, and Agnipath etc with the tag line “salu Modi, sambako Modi’ (Enough, Modi. Don’t kill people, Modi.)
Hoardings have also emerged with tag lines “Beware of Modi and KCR. ByeByeModi. ByeByeKCR”. These hoardings, reportedly put up by Congress supporters, appeared to tell voters that both the prime minister and the chief minister were fooling the public and needed to be thrown out of power. The hoarding attacks Modi on the Rs 15 lakh promised to each citizen of the country, citing inflation as well as the Agnipath scheme, whereas KCR is attacked for unemployment and not doing enough for youths and farmers of the state.
The BJP has also come down heavily on the ruling TRS for allegedly misusing government resources to book regular advertisement slots across the city, including on metro rail pillars, in advance to promote its welfare schemes, leaving no space for the saffron party to advertise itself ahead of its national executive meeting.
