In Congress vs BJP, Gully Boy’s ‘Bolo Azadi’ parody becomes new war anthem on Twitter

What’s the best way to create buzz online? In India, it’s pretty simple - take anything from Bollywood or world of cricket– success is guaranteed. This election season, a song from Ranveer Singh’s ‘Gully Boy’ has become new war anthem on Twitter. It all started with the ruling BJP posting a video using the in-your-face lyrics of the song ‘bolo azadi’ from the movie. The video was posted by the party at 10:37 pm on Friday. Since then, it has been retweeted 5.7K times and has garnered 11K ‘likes’. The video starts with ‘Congress se azadi’ slogan and goes on to attack the main Opposition party for dynasty politics, Commonwealth Games scam, 2G controversy. The song plays out in the background as the slides show news reports about Robert Vadra, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rahul Gandhi and A Raja. It has been viewed 107K times and ends with Prime Minister Modi’s Vote of Thanks speech in the Lok Sabah in which he had said that ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ was Mahatama Gandhi’s dream.

 

While @RahulGandhi will stay up all night wondering what new lies to peddle tomorrow morning, we leave you with this goal for 2019.

Have a happy friday night, people! :) pic.twitter.com/WOXOJ1QPYO

— BJP (@BJP4India) February 8, 2019

Not to be left behind, the Congress hit back with its own version of the song. The social media team of the Congress headed by Divya Spandana posted a song on Friday itself with a message ‘darr se azadi (freedom from fear)’. Using the same lyrics of the song sung by hip-hop artist Divine, the Congress attacked the BJP with issues such as lynching, Gauri Lankesh murder, Rafale scam and demonetisation. The video ends with a very aggressive Rahul Gandhi saying that , “ the day we all unite, they (BJP leaders) will be forced to leave.”  The video has been retweeted 1.9K times and has got 5.5K ‘likes’.

 

डर के आगे आज़ादी। #Azadi pic.twitter.com/WGHw3Q7Ndo

— Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019

Interestingly, the BJP snipped the part of the song, which uses ex-JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s ‘azadi’ slogan. However, the Congress has used it in the opening of its video.

Today is the very day, which changed the atmosphere of JNU student politics. On February 9, 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya allegedly organised a meeting to remember ‘Afzal Guru. Guru was convicted and hanged for his role in 2013 Parliament attack.