Art on the walls to ensure peaceful polls
Kolkata: In a unique move some cartoonists in the city have come up with graffitis on the walls urging people to conduct peaceful elections.
The initiative has been undertaken at a time when the political parties have occupied over most of the walls in the city to paint graffiti of their parties along with the symbol.
The cartoonists some of whom are doctors, engineers and teachers approached the Sovabazar Burtola Durgotsav Committee and requested the authorities to provide a wall in Sovabazar area where they can paint cartoons to create awareness in people.
A spokesman for the Durgotsav Committee said: " Initially we got a shock as it was difficult to get walls at the time of general elections. However, we managed to finds some walls where the cartoonists came up with interesting graffiti on the elections.
A spokesman for the cartoonists said: "Through the cartoons we have urged the people to vote peacefully. Election is a celebration in which people take part and exercise their franchise. Though the cartoons we have tried to make people aware of their Constitutional rights. We have not come up with any cartoon which will hurt the sentiment of any people or political
party. As humour is a part of painting cartoons, there is an element of humour in our paintings."
In 1970s when Left Front came to power many cartoons had come up with paintings on the walls on key political issues like the Emergency. Along with the cartoons short rhymes were also written to promote the message in the paintings.
But over the years, political cartoons have started disappearing.
In 2019, the biggest problem faced by the political parties irrespective of colour is they are unable to get good wall graffiti artists.
Most of the wall graffiti artists, who were whole timers in case of Left parties, have become old and young artists are a few in number.
A senior Forward Bloc leader said: "The party had failed to get graffiti artists who could paint proper lions, which is the symbol of the party."
