Political parties turn to radio for election campaign

Abid Gani Wani

Srinagar December 02: Breaking away from the traditional norms of political campaigns through posters and banners, the regional political parties, here, have turned to a hire air time from the radio channels to propagate for the assembly election , 2008.

The two biggest regional parties National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have switched over to popular entertainment channel for campaigning after experiencing the least number of people turning to the election rallies.

The enticing catchword and slogans adapted by tailoring the famous Bollywood songs uttered in radio messages has gain popularity as it seems that they are rejoicing the children besides attracting the youths.

 “The catch words and phrases are so meticulously deliberated by the anchors that they get embedded in the hearts and minds of the listener. This is a healthy trend in moulding the attention of people towards their parties,” said Rouf Ahmad, one of the radio listeners.

He said that this sort of exercises by the political parties would obviously help them in assembly elections.

 “The voices of the candidates, announcing their manifesto reaches even to those sections which other wise remained unaware about the party manifesto even when the term of the government is near its completion,” Rouf added.

The using of alternative medium during elections is borrowed from the west, where the new techniques were devised to lure the electorate as the working class busy in earning livelihood turned indifferent towards the election process.

Tariq Ahmad, another youth said that this election has various innovations to its credit. “In this assembly elections, the candidates started door to door campaign to get the support of the voting public. It is good move, at least the voting public gets a chance to analyze the candidate before going for vote,” said Tariq.

It is pertinent to mention here that it is for the first time in the history of elections in Kashmir, that regional political parties are advertising on the radio to garner the support of the people for their parties.