On Wednesday, the city of Bangalore woke up to “PAY CM – 40% accepted here” banners glued across the entire city. Allegedly, the digital warriors of Congress were behind the digital havoc that took place in the city on Wednesday.
In an attempt to expose the BJP’s corruption, the digital warriors of Congress designed ‘The PAY CM’ posters and glued them at various locations in the city, including, C.V Raman Road near Mekhri circle, which is at a close distance from Chief Minister Bommai’s residence.
The “PAY CM” banner looked almost identical to the Paytm banner, which is an application designed for digital payments. The designers of the “PAY CM” banner replicated the original and authenticated blue colour and design pattern of the company, Paytm.
The Congress digital warriors embedded Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s face in a QR code. Scanning the QR code would direct one to the web portal that Congress has launched in an attempt to expose BJP’s corruption. The tagline “40% accepted here” was used by the Congress to symbolise the allegations of kickbacks being demanded by the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) government to clear the pending project bills.
Last week, the opposition party, Congress, launched a web portal called “40percentsarkara.com”. Rahul Gandhi’s led party asked the people in Karnataka to raise their grievances about government corruption on the same portal. Within a week, the number of complaints and grievances rose to almost 1.2 Lakhs. The digital warriors of Congress linked the web portal to the QR code on the ‘PAY CM’ banner.
Reacting to the poster campaign by Congress, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, “This is an attempt to tarnish the image of Karnataka and my name. Everyone knows how to launch baseless campaigns like this one. But my problem is that this is an attempt to spoil the name of the state and suitable action will follow against that.”
As soon as the campaign came under the radar of Karnataka’s government, the police were directed to remove the banners glued across the city on an immediate basis. The police on the same day removed many of the “PAY CM” posters from many locations across the city of Bangalore.
Responding to Bommai’s government call to remove the banners, the Congress MLA, Priyank Kharge, asserted that the government might remove the banners but the allegations of corruption against the government have been proved with over one lakh complaints being registered in less than a week on the portal, 40percentsarkara.com, launched by the Congress party.
“They can tear the posters, hack our website and Twitter handles and even issue summons. But tell us when they’re going to explain to the people about this rate card.” Congress MLA Priyank Kharge added.
A legal action was taken by the concerned authorities immediately after the poster campaign came under notice. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) immediately filed a complaint against the poster campaign and registered three FIRs under Karnataka Open Places Disfigurement Act and other relevant sections of IPC., against unknown people.