Wit, humor, sarcasm and mockery are the new weapons the two Dravidian majors have begun deploying in the fight to the finish for the assembly polls round the corner.

The first sarcastic mocking bomb was hurled by the DMK against its arch rival J Jayalalithaa mocking her and style of governance and her seeming missing in action when over half of Chennai was drowning during the December 2015 floods. She has made just one “guest appearance” when she drove through in a convoy through her constituency of RA Puram in Chennai north.

DMK kicked off an acerbic war of words with a cleverly worded punch lines in full-page advertisements that mocked Jayalalithaa and her penchant for building her own persona – the Amma brand – by telling people that you have only seen Amma on stickers, banners and on TV but you would not have seen her directly, in person.

Even before the elections are formally announced, the DMK’s high voltage media campaign has already gone viral and the party is pretty happy that it has hit the target – the youth who comprise a sizeable section of the voters.

Said a source close to DMK treasurer and former deputy chief minister MKStalin, “we are really happy that the ads are going viral on social media,” and have rattled the AIADMK into retaliating with equally sharp and pungent words questioning the pre occupation of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi with cultural functions, marriage ceremonies but he had no time to attend to peoples work in assembly.

For the media, it is a godsent opportunity to make money.The opening day campaign of DMK itself cost some Rs 18 crore. “This is only the beginning, a trailer. You will see a more vigorous campaign growing in the days to come,” said a party source familiar with the contours of the campaign being worked out with the help of a creative team.

“Why are you doing this lady,” ? questioned the Ad punch line after detailing the failures of the Jayalalithaa and her government on various fronts. But all this by using powerfully creative words that attract the people and become the talk of the town. “Let us end this and let the Sun rise” the DMK ad signs off with a promise of more to watch out for, in the days to come.
Not the one to take things lying down, the AIADMK too hit back, with equal force and creativity.

On a message circulated on watsapp, the AIADMK hit out against Karunanidhi, questioning as to what he had done for the people.

“In these five years you would have seen Karunanidhi at marriage parties of actresses; you would have seen him at cultural festivals; you would have seen him in the (Kalaignar TV run reality show) Maanada Mayilada. But have you seen him in the Assembly, at least have you seen him in the Thiruvarur constituency, “ the AIADMK message circulated by the IT wing of the party.
“What man, why are you doing like this. Let DMK end. Let Tamil Nadu see the dawn,” the AIADMK watsapp message said.

Undeterred the DMK continued its ad war that began on Tuesday. In similar front-paged advertisements, it lobbed anoter barb at Jayalalithaa and questioned her on corruption that it alleged seeped into every aspect of life during her regime.

In this ad, the DMK questioned what it called the loot of sand, milk and growing unemployment. With the closure of Nokia and exit of Foxcon, 75000 people lost their jobs, the DMK ad said asking “why are you doing this Amma”.

This is only the beginning. Wait for electioneering to pick up, the campaign heat promises to singe the opponents as they battle it out in summer heat across Tamil Nadu.
Election are most likely to be held either in the last week of April or the first week of May and an announcement is likely to be issued soon.