Innumerable banners of Chief Minister N Rangasamy, who is celebrating his 62nd birthday on Saturday, have sprung up in every nook and cranny of Puducherry, despite a ban on banners in the UT.
More than the numbers (around 3,000), it is the manner in which the CM has been glorified in various avatars, and the wordings, that have evoked a lot of criticism from various quarters. This has forced the All India NR Congress (AINRC) party to remove a good number of these banners, which project its leader in many avatars - from movie characters and spiritual persons.
While some posters show him shaking hands with US President Barack Obama, in a few others, he has been picturised as Arjuna in Mahabharata with Assembly speaker V Sabapathy as Sri Krishna (the charioteer).
Besides, Rangasamy has taken avatars of actors like Rajinikanth, Salman Khan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as Chatrapathi Sivaji and Sage Raghavendra in banners. While these were eye-catchers, some banners have kicked up a storm.
A banner at Thengaithittu projecting Rangasamy as “all-powerful” in a karate pose like Bruce Lee, hurling and kicking out seven persons, with the Legislative Assembly in the background, has invited the wrath of the Congress.
The caption reads, “If you finish me, I will remain silent. But if you prevent me from serving the people, then...” While the Congress had prepared to put up a banner countering it, it is learnt that senior leaders of the AINRC had worked out a compromise and pulled the banner down.
Another banner depicting Rangasamy as a popular film hero with a cigar in his mouth and a gun in a hand, at Gorimedu, was also pulled down by the party. So was the one depicting him as Lord Murugan, following objections from the Hindu Munnani. While the motive of supporters behind putting up banners is to get the Rangasamy’s attention, they have ended up creating a mess.
Interestingly, this has come despite the ban as Rangasamy is known to like seeing himself in different avatars in the banners. In the meantime, those in the digital banner printing business are making good business. “The earnings have gone up 10 times with the work that has been coming in for the last 10 days,” said Thangaraj of Raja Digitals.
“Due to more work, we have engaged four more persons, two computer men and an equal number for machine printing,” he added.
While the digital banner printers are happy over the income and employment generated, cash-starved municipalities and commune panchayats are neither able to impose ban on banners nor able to earn revenue by levying charges for them.
Ever since the Pondicherry Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act of 2009, the local bodies can neither give permission nor collect charges for them.
Though they can book and impose penalty anywhere between `200 and `1000 for violation of the provisions of the Act, they had not been able to do even that, said an official.