KOCHI: The LDF seems to have taken a big gamble by putting Pinarayi Vijayan as its sole face in its election advertisement campaign titled 'Urappanu LDF'. While industry officials said it was a risk worth taking as the CM has been the face of this administration for the past five years, but the flip side of the campaign is that if the LDF loses, the entire blame will have to be borne by Pinarayi alone.
An official at Maitri Advertising, which is the brain behind the Left Front’s advertisement campaign for the 2021 polls too, said the catchline is a continuation of its winning slogan of 2016 assembly polls. The Kochi-based ad-firm coined the winning line ‘LDF Varum Ellam Shariyakum’ (LDF will come, will set everything right) in the 2016 polls.
“If you look at the series of advertisement campaigns, you could find that this catchline is a continuation of the 2016 tagline. The campaign said the LDF will set right everything, and this time we are saying there is a surety in everything -- surety in education, surety in health, surety in security, surety in shelter etc under the LDF,” said the Maitri official. But, the posters and billboards in the last polls had the trio of V S Achuthanandan, Pinarayi Vijayan and the then party secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. This time, the posters have only one leader, that of Pinarayi Vijayan.
“We told the agency the work we have done in the last five years and based on it to coin a catchline,” said a source with the LDF. “The posters are the result of the briefing,” he said. Joice C Jose, of Graphin Communications, who worked for the NDA/BJP campaign in the 2016 assembly polls, said it’s only fair that LDF put the CM’s face in its election advertisement campaigns. “The CM led from the front in difficult times starting with the floods and the fight against Covid-19,” he said. According to him, the other faces in the LDF — be it A Vijayaraghavan, or CPI’s Kanam Rajendran, or senior leaders like Thomas Isaac are not popular faces. “It’s all about Pinarayi Vijayan, and it’s justifiable that the election campaigns are focused on him,” said Jose.
While the LDF got an early start to its campaign, the UDF launched its campaign on Wednesday with a catchline Naadu Nannakan UDF (UDF -- to make the land prosper) while NDA/BJP is yet to launch its advertisement campaign. It is a well-known fact that Pinarayi Vijayan is yet to lead the LDF to a major win -- either in assembly elections or Lok Sabha elections.
While the credit for the 2016 assembly polls went to V S Achuthanandan, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections saw LDF losing its face after defeat in 19 out of the 20 seats. Though the LDF under Pinarayi has won key assembly bypolls in between and 2020 local body polls, it’s the upcoming assembly polls that will be the sternest test for the 75-year-old Communist leader. And for now, it seems he’s confident of pulling it through, going by the ad campaigns.