Cartoons add spice to Congress-AAP virtual fight

CHANDIGARH: As campaigning begins to peak for the Punjab assembly elections, teams of cartoonists and graphic designers of Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are working overtime at lampooning each other with some eyebrow-raising images. The idea is not to add humour and sarcasm in a way that it doesn’t take the mind of votes off the long-drawn campaign but reinforce the issues being raised by the party.
Where Punjab Congress has its campaign strategist Prashant Kishore’s team Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) at work with a team of cartoonists and researchers, AAP has a staunch party volunteer Pushpinder Singh coming up with one cartoon each day without fail.The Congress teams also include two former IIT-ians who were always passionate about their creative skills.
However, the trend of meme is yet to catch up in the state and the cartoonists seem to follow the traditional way of drawing caricatures of politicians.
Building ‘Brand Capt’
The head of I-PAC’s team of cartoonists and graphic designers, Paroma Bhat, said the initial phase of the campaign focused around caricatures of Capt Amarinder Singh in which he was projected as the custodian of Punjab’s interests. “We tried to give him a Robinhood kind of an image. The next phase showed him as a kind-hearted leader who is fighting for Punjab’s waters. This was followed by ‘Badal day Dacoit’, a campaign that gave a villainous representation to Akali leaders,” Bhat said.
“Party leaders also come up with ideas; that is how the ‘Sat te charcha’ idea came up that puts across a factual breakdown of an issue by presenting arguments and counterarguments to counter the rivals’ view. The comic usually shows two people discussing an issue threadbare,” she adds.
“The cartoons and graphics are mainly created for circulation on WhatsApp. But, on an average, an image gets over one lakh views on Facebook. The themes are mostly centred around sarcasm and spoofs. However, a recent cartoon of Amarinder and former PM Manmohan Singh working on the manifesto went viral because it was charming,” said Paroma. “I do not draw myself, but our main cartoonist was earlier working with a newspaper and knows how to give a political depiction of an issue in the form of comics.”
Appeal for change
AAP’s key cartoonist Pushpinder Singh began by helping the party during its first Delhi election in 2013. Once he proved his work, Pushpinder was brought on board to help the party with its Punjab campaign. “I remember presenting Kejriwal a portrait of him. When he got to know that I made it in blood, he sent me a message that he didn’t approve of such things. But it was my way of expressing my respect for him,” he said.
“I, initially, used to draw on paper and fill colour. Later, an AAP supporter provided me a notepad. Every morning, I get up in the wee hours, scan the media and come up with a cartoon that I share on WhatsApp to other party supporters. The key theme is to tell people that it is AAP that can change things for the better of Punjab, as SAD and Congress have been tried in the past,” he said.
Pushpinder said he was targetted with political vendetta and a case was filed against him. “I had to leave my home, but the party stood by me in those testing times. A political cartoon has more impact than other media. That is why people like to share it,” he said. “I was encouraged by an interview of Kejriwal where he said he did not mind being shown in cartoons and he actually liked it. A friend’s father, who is into political cartooning, told me that it was only the President of India who cannot be turned into a caricature. Otherwise, there is no bar,” he said.