Catchy campaign songs strike the right chord with voters

Songs, videos by ruling Trinamul Congress catches voters’ attention ahead of rural body polls

- DOLA MITRA

Bidula Sardar works as a domestic help in a house in Kolkata and she has asked for four days leave to go to her village in Barasat on the outskirts of the capital city to cast her vote in the rural elections on 8 July. She usually carries with her a mobile phone which doubles up as a music system that she keeps switched on while dusting, sweeping, swabbing, doing dishes or washing clothes. Being self-confessedly ‘religious’ she has songs on her playlist which are usually devotional, but the one that got stuck in a loop on her device last time that elections were on in the state two years ago was a political parody on a Bengali pop hit called “Tumpa Shona” (Tumpa Darling) by the singer-composer duo Arob Dey Chowdhury and Avishek Saha. Synced to a foot-tapping tune with tongue-in-cheek lyrics about a jilted young man’s offer of love to an unsuspecting Tumpa, for whom he is ready to give up “tobacco chewing” among other things, the parody by supporters of the Communist parties of West Bengal, called “Tumpa Brigade Cholo” written by Rahul Paul, went viral on YouTube as it took goodhumored digs at rivals Trinamul and BJP, ruling the state and the country, respectively. Whether Sardar voted Left because of her obsession with the parody or not is not known ,but she has self-confessedly got “hooked” to catchy campaign songs and looks forward to them come election time.