Election campaigning in India, hitherto confined to pages in periodicals, billboards, larger than life size posters and TV advertisements has taken a new turn with the publication of a comic book/graphic novel.
While his opponents have gone overboard ridiculing him for the slogan “Modi ki guarantee”, a person who has studied the progress made by the Narendra Modi Government has come out with a graphic novel “101 Reasons Why I Will Vote for Modi”. This is the first attempt of its kind of making use of a comic book for spreading a political message.
“Graphic novels can be very powerful means to communicate political ideas to the masses. This book is written from a voters’ point of view, whether s/he will vote for Modi back to power in 2024,” Shantanu Gupta told The Pioneer.
The comic book that has hit the shelves across the country is not something to be laughed at. It is reminiscences, reflections and the change the country has seen in the last ten years. The seriousness of the book lies in the studies undertaken by author Gupta, seasoned journalist and author of two path-breaking books “The Monk Who Became Chief Minister” and “The Monk who Transformed Uttar Pradesh”.
The books were based on the life of Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and how he changed “UP Waala Bhaiya” abuse to a badge of honour.
Those who read the two books had no doubt about the outcome of the UP Legislative Assembly Election held in 2022 because of Gupta’s eyewitness account. He found out that UP has been liberated from the shackles of “BIMARU” States as entrepreneurs and investors were queuing up to make big time investments in the State.
The first five years of Yogi rule saw major infrastructure projects get going and UP emerging as a developed State under the watchful eyes of the Monk.
Gupta is experimenting with an innovation on the decade long Modi Government’s performance. What makes the graphic novel unique and distinct is that the protagonist remains off the pages most of the time. It is the beneficiaries who are villagers, residents of small and medium sized towns, students, youth and the aged who explain why they would vote for Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Our leaders are guided by the dictum ‘all is fair in war and love’. Gupta’s book is different in all respects as it is focused on the major achievements of the Modi Government that provided more than four crore houses to the homeless under the PM Awas Yojana, more than 11 crore toilets which have come as a boon to the villagers.
Women who had to depend on open fields to attend to nature’s call and who were always under the threat of snakes, scorpions and goons are a relieved lot because of the national mission of building toilets.
Kalavati of Jaipura, a village in UP and Rama didi whose harrowing experience of walking miles to fetch woods from the forest to cook the meals literally make readers cry. “Cooking three meals a day by burning wood was equivalent to smoking more than 300 cigarettes,” says Kalavati who is one of the 10 crore beneficiaries of Ujjwala Yojana which helped them to own LPG stoves and cylinders.
This is just two or three schemes that saw bearing fruits in the last decade. There is a lot more. Each section of the Indian society, rural, urban, metro residents, youngsters, women of all ages and students have benefited thanks to the foolproof programmes that took wings.
India has changed and changed for the better.
Interestingly, the challengers are tied up with just one agenda - to defeat the Government. For that they resort to all kinds of games. The other day saw a national spokesperson of the grand old party abusing and humiliating a venerated film personality who is contesting the polls.
The only option before the challengers is to provide the electorate with 102 reasons why one should vote for them.
