Poster war en route INC plenary session venue

 

 

 

THE commencement of the 85th plenary session of the Indian National Congress in Raipur was not without some spectacle. The raid by the Enforcement Directorate at the residences of some Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh a few days before the plenary session and then the arrest of Pawan Khera, National Spokesperson of the Congress after he was de-boarded from an Indigo flight to Raipur and subsequent arrest has all made the plenary session interesting. But there is another spectacle on the wait in Raipur, ‘a poster war’.

Many days before the start of the plenary session almost all parts of Nava Raipur and the city were covered by hoardings and posters welcoming the dignitaries to the plenary session. The hoardings and posters erected in the city have evidently proved the upper hand of the Raipur Mayor Aijaz Dhebar who is considered close to the Chief Minister. He has taken up most of the prominent spaces on way to the plenary session and the hoardings by leaders of other groups have got lost in the hype created by Dhebar. There are many life-size cut outs of the prominent leaders of the Congress en route to the venue of the plenary. The cutouts are of Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Mohan Markam, and Kumari Selja. Other than these leaders there are very few cutouts of other leaders. Another Congress leader who is prominently visible in the hoardings is K C Venugopal, General Secretary in charge of the organisation. But other than these leaders not many leaders are prominently visible through the posters and hoardings erected en route to the venue.

Most of the Cabinet ministers in the Chhattisgarh Congress Government have either not made any attempt to become visible through the hoardings or have not been able to get a space in this poster war. The visibility of prominent leaders of Chhattisgarh, from the dissident groups, is almost negligible. One such leader is T S Singhdeo who has suddenly become inconsequential as far as the posters and hoardings are concerned. The posters have also resulted in a skirmish between two young groups in the party who have been trying to occupy maximum space en route to the venue, but the clear winner appears to be the Mayor of Raipur who has completely taken over every inch of the space available. The hoarding and posters at the venue of the plenary session also clearly show off the groups within the party and very strangely no posters carry the pictures of the former Incharge of Chhattisgarh P L Punia, who also played an instrumental role in bringing the Congress Government in Chhattisgarh along with the State leaders dethroning the BJP. The Raipur Mayor’s attempt to eclipse his political opponents is presumably with the blessings of the Chief Minister and this also shows his political ambition. Maybe the Mayor has aspirations to contest the assembly elections from any constituency in Raipur. Clearly it’s a show of the Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, stated a political analyst.