A campaign song by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala contained the lines, “Let’s join our hands to defeat the union government’s rule, which is famous for corruption.” Yes, you read that right. The ‘wrong’ lyrics have ended up embarrassing the party, which hurriedly rushed to put the blame on its IT cell.
The faux pas happened on Wednesday, February 21 when BJP’s Kerala Padayatra reached Ponnani in Malappuram district and songs were played during a break. Since the event was live-streamed, videos of the incident were recorded and shared by several social media users.
According to BJP IT cell chairman S Jayasankar, the song with the particular lyrics was played by mistake at the local level. “The song was written in 2013 against the Congress-led Union government. During one of the breaks in the rally, this old song came up in the playlist,” he told TNM.
Following the goof-up, Kerala BJP president K Surendran asked the party’s central leadership to take strict action against S Jayasankar. However, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Prakash Javadekar said that there was no need for action. “Kerala media should probe before printing news about BJP or for anybody. The matter in Ponnani is a simple local mistake of playing the song prepared against the UPA government in 2013. Such mistakes happen in newspapers also every day. No action is required. ‘Aayega to Modi’,” he wrote on X.
The latest embarrassment comes a few days after the Kerala BJP courted controversy for a poster for Surendran’s Padayatra in Kozhikode district. It listed the programme schedule for February 20, containing an insensitive reference to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe community. The poster mentioned that Surendran would have lunch at 1 pm with SC/ST leaders.
Reacting to the poster, Congress leader and MP K Muraleedharan had stated that the BJP had insulted Dalit leaders. The BJP also received criticism that by mentioning caste in the poster, the party had revealed its casteist mindset. Surendran was forced to clarify that he had eaten with other community leaders as well and that 'evil minds' were behind the new reports.