Masks of political leaders hot favourite in poll campaign

Bengaluru, Apr 2 (ANI): Face masks of various political leaders seem to have become hot favourite among voters this election.

An event management company in Bengaluru creates face masks of just any political leader who matters in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

With the Election Commission coming down heavily on party candidates to cut down on campaign expenditure, this is probably the easiest and cheapest way to get to the masses.

Sporting masks of their favourite leaders, party workers undertake door-to-door campaign to help voters get familiar with their leaders.

Ravi Shankar Bettampadi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Events House said that since it's impossible for the leaders to visit every household due to hectic schedule during elections, voters would atleast get to know how their leaders look like.

"It's an innovative concept. Congress party president Sonia Gandhi and senior BJP leader Advani cannot go and give his or her thoughts across India. They would need security, but we can overcome the problems by using masks," said Bettampadi.

From creating mask of Sonia Gandhi to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, the event management company has produced lakhs of face masks of almost every political leader.

Advani, Janata Dal (Secular) supremo H D Deve Gowda, former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi are the other hot favourite ones.

Demand for the masks is pouring in, which is expected to increase further in the coming days, as elections dates are nearing in.

"Right now, we are working on the face mask of Shiv Kumar Udasi for which we have received order for 50,000. We have also started receiving orders for face masks of Sonia Gandhi, Advani, Manmohan Singh and other political leaders," said Munish, a designer, Events House.

The Events House has not yet received order for the most popular figure ofolitics, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. The entire unit is looking forward to make Lalu's face-mask.

The masks making process involve taking pictures of political leaders. With the extensive use of graphics and Photoshop, the pictures are then scanned before they are printed. By Jaipal Sharma (ANI)