Mumbai (The Hindu): The poster war has truly begun in the run-up to the municipal elections with the Congress likely to launch its campaign on January 20. Sources in the party said the campaign with the tagline ‘Man Badala, Mumbai Badlel’ (Change your opinion to change Mumbai), will kick start with the release of 14 pictures highlighting the city’s woes during the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party rule in the State.

Pointing out failures

‘The posters and pictures will depict a ‘rotten Mumbai’ with choked gutters, potholed roads, waterlogged areas to highlight the combined failure of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, party sources said. The Congress had earlier launched a spoof of Sena’s ‘Did you know’ campaign, with posters exposing various ‘scams’ in the corporation.

The first of the 14 pictures were leaked online showed a cycle rickshaw stuck in a traffic jam. However, the picture was ridiculed by Twitterati, who pointed out that the image was morphed as cycle rickshaws did not ply in Mumbai. The picture was later removed from the city Congress’s Twitter handle.

The Mumbai Congress said that the campaign would be launched officially only on January 20. “This is only a trial picture that got leaked, we will be officially launching our campaign officially tomorrow,” said city Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam.

With the Shiv Sena launched its “Did you know’ campaign on social media, highlighting its achievement, the NCP said it might launch a ‘Do you know’ campaign to highlight the failures of the Sena. “They have not kept any of their poll promises, and our ‘Do you know’ campaign could be a nice way of highlighting their failures,” said NCP leader Nawab Malik.