The Congress party on Sunday, 7 April, launched their campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, unveiling their campaign song as well as their slogan, ‘Ab Hoga NYAY’. The campaign song and video highlights, among other things, the party’s proposed minimum income guarantee scheme, titled ‘NYAY’.
At the launch press conference, the Congress announced that they were doing a full-fledged digital and social media campaign, as well as a fixed publicity campaign ahead of the polls. Apart from the slogan ‘Ab Hoga NYAY’, there will also be separate slogans that some states will be using, as well as regional adaptations in six vernacular languages, which has already been done, Congress leader Anand Sharma announced.
At a press conference, they also displayed the hoardings that would be used in the campaign.
A special feature of the physical campaign will be the use of container trucks, which will criss-cross the country. These trucks will start their movement from Sunday, Sharma said.
Speaking at the press conference, Sharma said that the lyrics to the campaign song had been written by Javed Akhtar and the theme video has been directed by Nikkhil Advani. The catchphrase of the song is ‘Main hi toh Hindustan hoon’.
The song also mentions farmers’ issues, lack of employment, demonetisation, women’s security and GST, among other things, reported ANI.
Cong Modifies Poll Song After EC’s Objection
Ahead of the release, Congress was asked by the Election Commission of India to remove a few lines from the song which mentioned disturbed communal harmony. The lines reportedly accused the NDA government of spreading hatred and pitching communities against each other, according to ANI.
The EC found one particular stanza objectionable, “Tum jhooti chaalein chal ke, sheheron ke naam badal ke, noton ko kachra kar ke, aur har nirdhan ko chhal ke, nafrat ka dhuaan phailaake, bhai se bhai ladaake, kehte ho hum ko chun lo, ab tum bhi humaari sun lo (After making false moves, changing the names of cities, consigning currency notes to scrap, deceiving every poor person, spreading the smoke of hate, pitting brother against brother, you say ‘elect me’, but you must listen to us)”, according to The Print.
The Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) team of the EC in Delhi asked the Congress to make the changes, reported India Today.
A senior Congress functionary said they had no idea what was objectionable about it.
Sources told ANI that the changes had been made ahead of the release on Sunday afternoon.
(With inputs from ANI and India Today and The Print)
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