Congress, TD wage ad war

Hyderabad, Jan. 4: A cockfight before the Sankranti festival was common in the state earlier. Now, the Congress and the Telugu Desam have taken this fight to the small screen. It all began when the Telugu Desam booked slots for 10,000 seconds on five Telugu channels to show a one- minute advertisement almost every other hour. This ad war will continue for the next three months. 

In the advertisement titled Lokam kodi koostomdi (talk of the town), two yellow- coloured chicks come out of their shells and talk negatively about Jalayagnam, acid attacks, law and order situation in the state. In the end, the chicks say: ‘Wait for four more months so that everything is set right". 

The advertisement which was being aired on all news channels from January 3 caught the attention of the ruling Congress who immediately hired a private agency to release a counter advertisement which began on Sunday. In the advertisement it says: "This chick slept for nine years without doing anything good for the people. It now wakes up and talks nonsense." 

Most of the advertisements released by the AP government already feature the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy on various development and welfare schemes. While the TD advertisement is for 60 seconds, the Congress ad is for 34 seconds featuring real chicks. 

It is reliably learnt that both the parties bought slots on different channels for Rs 7 crore each. Ironically, the expenditure for the 2004 election was only Rs 4 crore. Though the election schedule for the ensuing elections has not yet been announced, the two main parties have launched an advertisement war very early. 

If the advertisements were released after the poll schedule was announced, the expenditure would have gone into the party account which would be scrutinised by the Election Commission observers. Interestingly, both the ads do not specifically ask for votes in favour of a party. They only highlight their political agenda.

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