Days after the announcement of Telangana election schedule, dozens of campaign vehicles are getting finishing touches at the NTR Stadium in Hyderabad. The open ground, which is more a grassless public park than a sporting arena, is filled with sounds of hammers, cutters, blowtorches as workers go about their paces in a choreographed sequence.
“Only the Bharat Rashtra Samithi has announced its candidates and most of the orders are from that party. We have already finished and dispatched campaign vehicles of Siddipet, Miryalaguda, Kaushik Reddy’s vehicles are ready,” says D. Chanda Rao, whose firm is working on the vehicles.
The fabrication work on the site is the hub for transforming vehicles for elections in Telangana from the time when actor N.T. Rama Rao stepped into the political arena. NTR stormed to power in united Andhra Pradesh riding a modified Chevrolet van labelled as Chaitanya Ratham (awareness vehicle). That van was modified by Chanda Rao’s father Eashwar Rao.
“Each candidate requires three or four vehicles. BJP and Congress will come to us once their candidate names are released. The vehicles are hired by party workers. Each party requires about 150 vehicles,” informs Mr.Rao.
These orders have given a fresh lease of life to artisans like Dattatreya Sriram who covers the upper portion of the vehicles with his artwork. Using fluorescent green and pink interspersed with white bands, he draws flowy patterns on the wooden boards.
“I am working after one year. All my life I have painted film posters but after the flexis (large format digital prints) became cheap, work became scarce. I have drawn the 56-foot high Chiranjeevi poster for Khaidi (1983). Now I draw these lines. It is work,” says Dattatreya. There are about 200 workers who mill about the site carrying out various tasks.
Tata Ace, Mahindra Bolero and the mini truck from DCM are the vehicles of choice for reconfiguration into political vehicles. “Tata Ace and Bolero are the vehicles of choice for going into the smaller streets. The bigger vehicles are used for road shows,” says Mr.Chanda Rao, refusing to divulge financial details citing confidentiality of deals with the politicians.
But according to political workers, the cost works out to be between ₹1.2 lakh and ₹1.5 lakh depending on the vehicle.
The political arena has always been swayed by the film world in the two Telugu states. The romance with these outsize posters, raucous songs and pit-stop speeches shows the continuation of that affair.
