Assembly elections have ended and it’s now time for that favourite pursuit of journalists across the globe – trying to come up with the best puns to gain the edge in their election coverage.
Today, the Times of India takes the badge of honour. We counted 10 before we gave up, but we’ll do our best to cover them all.
Our journey starts on page 1, with “BJP breaks cycle in UP; AAPheaval in Punjab” – and you have to hand it to TOI for the genuine cleverness of “cycle”, which is also the losing Samajwadi Party’s election symbol.
You’ve also got Punjab listening to “Kejriwal’s Mann” and how the “Saffrun continues”.
Other puns were more subtle, relying on fonts and colours.
Lest you think the Congress was left out – an understandable assumption, given its performance this election – TOI spotlighted it on page 12.
Moving on to page 18, we found a plethora of AAP puns that blew us away (see, we can do puns too).
The same page flogged the dead horse, sorry the Mann joke, that we saw on page 1. Poor Amarinder Singh was also an easy target.
Next came the Goa results on page 19, this time employing puns rooted in science and weather patterns.
If there was an award for the most number of “jokes” to grace a newspaper’s pages, TOI wins it hands down.
Newslaundry is a reader-supported, ad-free, independent news outlet based out of New Delhi. Support their journalism, here.
