2024 LS elections: From digital poll wars to voter awareness, memes flood social media

New Delhi: From attacking political opponents to raising awareness among the electorate, colourful memes, including many drawing humorous elements from popular Bollywood films, have flooded social media as the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls began on Friday.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections is the largest democratic exercise in the world and major political parties have tried to outwit their rivals both in rallies on the ground and slugfests online.

From Instagram to X, social media platforms, in the run-up to the polls have seen bitter poster wars and even more bitter meme battles for political one-upmanship.

But, amid this digital melee, the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is holding the world’s largest elections, has used memes to reach out to the electorate, especially the young and first-time voters, using at times quirky lines or dialogues from famous movies to drive the message home.

“We are excited to vote in #LokSabhaElections2024 Are you ready too?#SaathChalenge #Elections2024 #ChunavKaParv #DeshKaGarv #FirstTimeVoters #ECI,” the ECI posted on X on Wednesday, and used a meme based on a still from a scene from the film ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’ with a tagline ‘Excitement of first time voters before voting’.

In the first phase, 102 seats spread across 21 states and Union territories are scheduled to go to polls, the ECI had earlier said. Polling began on Friday at 7 AM and will end at 6 PM.

Among those in the fray are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Sarbanada Sonowal and Bhupendra Yadav, Gaurav Gogoi of Congress, DMK’s Kanimozhi and K Annamalai of BJP.

Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first-time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years in the first phase.

As polling began for phase one of the elections, the ECI’s X handle shared voters queuing up at booths, or flashing inked finger to security personnel on duty, from multiple states, reflecting the diversity of a democratic India.

In its posts on X, the Commission also at times used languages native to the region of polling to achieve greater connect with the masses.

“Amar vote, amar doyitvo ! #MyVoteMyDuty #YouAreTheOne #IVote4Sure Check out the facts at a glance of the #Phase1 poll in #WestBengal #ChunavKaParv #DeshKaGarv # GeneralElections2024 #GoVote,” the ECI posted on Friday along with photos of young and old voters of West Bengal.

With photos showing voters in Rajasthan, it used lines such as “Padharo Mhare Polling Booth” in its post on X.

The ECI has described elections as the “festival of democracy” and “Chunav ka Parv”, and on Thursday night, it shared an invite card on X, both in English and Hindi, calling it the ‘Grand Voting Invitation’ with RSVP for ‘All voters of India’.

On the eve of the first phase of the polls, the ECI also put up a series of posts, digital posters on X to motivate voters to come out and exercise their franchise. It also reposted a meme themed on film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ shared by Doordarshan, on Thursday, as well as a classic poster by Amul on the 2024 polls which had a pun-laced tagline -- ‘World’s greataste elections! Amul Your favourite choice”.