The Twitter war between key opponents ahead of the Delhi Assembly Elections is the most interesting thing that happened on social media. And the most used weapon in this battle of social media is meme. A meme can change the game and the Aam Aadmi Party is known for some impressive show. Just check out there Twitter profile and you would know what we are talking about. But looks like Delhi BJP is all set to turn the meme war in its favour. So, it all began with a Baazigar meme by the AAP taunting Delhi BJP chief and senior leader Manoj Tiwari.
The 1993 blockbuster starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Shilp Shetty Kundra is an iconic movie. The scene used by the AAP as meme was from the song ‘Chhupana bhi nahi aata’ from Baazigar where a lovelorn Siddharth Ray (playing inspector Karan Saxena) is looking at Kajol (Priya) during her engagement with Shah Rukh Khan (Vicky Malhotra).
So, AAP dubbed Kajol as Delhi and Siddharth Ray as Manoj Tiwari and Shah Rukh Khan as Arvind Kejriwal. It captioned the meme with “All the best Sir @ManojTiwariMP” message. The gist of the meme was loud and clear that just like movie, Kajol (Delhi) will go with Shah Rukh Khan (Kejriwal).
Whoever is handling this account is writing Arvind Kejriwal’s political obituary. SRK was a manipulative villain in the movie who was plotting against Kajol & her family. He killed Kajol's sister.
And, in the end, he got killed for his sins. Same fate awaits Kejriwal in Delhi! https://t.co/Bv2mTHBD2N— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) January 12, 2020
What followed was an EPIC reply by the Delhi BJP, which is winning Twitter. In its savage reply, the Delhi BJP said, “Whoever is handling this account is writing Arvind Kejriwal’s political obituary. SRK was a manipulative villain in the movie who was plotting against Kajol & her family. He killed Kajol's sister. And, in the end, he got killed for his sins. Same fate awaits Kejriwal in Delhi!” So far, the tweet has garnered 5.5K retweets and 16.7K likes.
Meme War
The high-stakes tussle for power in the national capital is also being hotly contested in the virtual world with parties' social media warriors battle-ready with their 'weapons' of parodies, memes and hashtags. "Especially in an urban constituency like Delhi, it is very important to have a well defined social media strategy. We have been blessed that we have been frontrunners in that," says AAP social media strategist Ankit Lal.
The AAP's spoof of the original Ambuja cement advertisement caught eyeballs and triggered a spoof-fest among the political parties. While playing the original advertisement, the AAP's media cell added titles to the characters and changed the voice over at the end.
The AAP has also been using memes to hit out at the BJP and the Congress.
Bollywood To Rescue
It has tried to corner the BJP for not declaring its chief ministerial candidate, posting a still from the movie Tanu weds Manu Returns with the dialogue by Deepak Dobriyal: "You are a good question, but your question hurt me".The Congress has been attacking the AAP on its failures in keeping promises, posting various tweets to highlight such issues using the hashtag "jhaadu ka jhaansa". 'Jhadu' (broom) is AAP's election symbol.
The result of this online battle will be known on February 11 when counting of votes takes place after polling on February 8.