Watch pamphlet, ad battle unfold on polling day

The focus of the electoral battle in Delhi has swiftly moved over to the print media a day before voting for the seven Lok Sabha seats. Big advertisements appeared in newspapers on Wednesday exhorting voters to back candidates from a the advertising party.

Delhi election officials said newspapers and pamphlets are the lone weapons available to aspiring Delhi MPs after field campaigning ended last evening. Chief Nodal Officer Ankur Garg said, “Printed form of campaign can go on till the end of polling.”Among the print medium campaigns on election-eve, the face of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi seemed most common with his party placing ads in almost all English and Hindi dailies on Wednesday.

“Wait for tomorrow,” said a Delhi BJP leader, hinting at the party’s mega media planning for the D-day. The voting day will be no exception with the Congress and BJP expected to vie for ad space in newspapers on Thursday in a bid to connect with the voters minutes or hours before they press the buttons on EVMs.Going by the experience of last December’s Delhi Assembly elections, newspapers on the voting day will be bulkier than usual.

Apart from more pages to accommodate political ads, the newspapers will gain weight due to the flyers inserted by contestants.

As seen in the Assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party is also expected to be a serious player in the pamphlet war on the balloting day.

On December 4, 2013 voting day for the Assembly, many of the AAP candidates had inserted flyers in newspapers giving detailed accounts of the failures and negative aspects of their political rivals.

Meanwhile, newspaper vendors have been reaping the benefit of politicians’ desperation to reach the voters’ doorsteps by inserting flyers. 

“We get anything from Rs 15 to 25 for inserting political pamphlets in 100 newspapers,” said Ajit Kumar, a vendor in New Delhi constituency. “We have got several orders for Thursday and we are gearing up to start work in the wee hours,” he said.