Bengaluru: Bengaluru is perhaps the only city where election campaigning happens in 6 to 7 languages. Like in a true multi-lingual city, candidates are wooing voters in their language.
At many places one can see a single poster with four languages on it. English, Kannada, Urdu and Tamil are quiet common. Vote appeals are tailor made in the language spoken by each community, ahead of the BBMP polls.
Shakeel Ahmed, a Congress candidate whose mother tongue is Urdu has made a multi-lingual poster to woo voters in the east Bengaluru area of Shivajinagar, a locality where you can hear Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi voices in different households.
Talking to CNN-IBN Shakeel Ahmed said, "in our constituency, there are Telugus, Tamilians, Marathis, Settys, Muslims, Christians etc. All of us are united. They celebrate our festivals and we celebrate theirs".
In a city where caste and language play an important role in winning votes, the Congress went ahead and released its party manifesto in five languages….Kannada, English, Urdu, Tamil and Telugu. Quite predictably, pro-Kannada groups were quick to oppose this.
Condemning it a Karnataka Rakshana Vedike activist angrily said “this is Karnataka. Just because there are people who speak Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Gujarati, it cannot be in their language".
Since the last few centuries, people from the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala migrated to Bengaluru for a better livelihood. As of 1991, over 21% of the city’s population was of Tamils, constituting the largest ethnolinguisitc minority in Bengaluru. The Telugu people form the third largest ethnic group after Kannadigas and Urdu-speaking people. Bengaluru also has a sizeable population of Malayalees, Marwaris and Marathis, prompting the candidates to campaign in the language of the voter.
The Eastearn part of Bengaluru has a significant population of Tamils and candidates like M Pari of the BJP are wooing Tamil voters in their native language. He said “I am campaigning door to door. They understand what I'm speaking. So it easy to campaign. The dominating community is Tamilians, so when I go to their house I talk in Tamil".
Campaigning is starting in full swing ahead of the BBMP elections. And the candidates are also brushing up their language skills to woo voters from different communities. Critics may call it a vote bank politics, but some argue that this only captures the true cosmopolitan spirit of the city.
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