India’s general election, the world’s biggest festival of democracy in action, begins this week. The mammoth exercise of 950 million voters selecting the country’s next government is being conducted in seven phases starting on Friday and ending on June 1, with the results to be declared on June 4.
While animals cannot vote in elections, authorities in the crucial state of West Bengal, which sends 42 members to the 543-member Lok Sabha, or House of the People in Parliament, have created characters based upon well-known animal species to persuade the electorate to go to the polling booths in the height of the Indian summer and do their duty by the Republic.
District election sections in eastern India’s most populous state have introduced various animal mascots to spread the message. According to a report on news portal Firstpost.com, Alipurduar district has roped in ‘Gendu’, inspired by the rhinoceros of the Dooars, Cooch Behar district has chosen the turtle ‘Mohanbao’, the South 24 Parganas, famous for the Sunderbans, has the Royal Bengal tiger ‘Baghu’ in the vanguard, while the Darjeeling hills have a red panda as their mascot. In the coastal district of East Midnapore, a character modelled on crabs is promoting voter turnout, while ‘Ghotoknath’, based on the famed terracotta horses of Bankura, is urging people to cast their votes in the south-central district.
Other mascots in the state include Jalpaiguri’s ‘Teesta’, a girl named after the river that is the region’s lifeline, and ‘Tenida’, a fictional resident of the Pataldanga locality in Calcutta.
According to the news portal, an election official said the multiplicity of mascots, “highlights Bengal’s rich cultural diversity [and] aims at motivating voters to participate in the electoral process. Instead of formal language, we are trying to reach out to voters with characters that are closer to their hearts. We believe the effect will be much more.”
Anjana Brahma, professor of Bengali at K.K. Das College in Calcutta, told the portal, “Such initiatives raise awareness among the people not only about elections, but also about their area’s heritage, culture, and natural resources.”
The idea is not unique to Bengal and other states have also used it. In March, the Kamrup Metropolitan district administration in Assam unveiled its election mascots, ‘Kodomi’ and ‘Totola’, native bird species on the verge of extinction. Two years ago, just before the assembly election in Punjab, the state’s chief electoral officer unveiled the poll mascot ‘Shera’. A report in The Sentinel newspaper of Assam said a selfie zone in the state’s Golaghat district had two mascots named ‘Tikhor’ (swamp deer) and ‘Sutibai’ (butterfly) with the same idea.
A June 2016 report in the Indian Express newspaper said election authorities in Meghalaya had introduced the clouded leopard as their mascot for the launch of Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation activities under the National Electoral Rolls Purification Programme.
