Congress and BJP are both bringing their A game on social media, with Karnataka Assembly Elections fast approaching. Last week, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah threw shade at BJP General Secretary P Muralidhar Rao for tweeting to him in Hindi, and said that he should be tweeted to in English or Kannada.
On Sunday, BJP Karnataka announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be visiting the Udupi Shri Krishna Mutt and would later address a rally in Udupi. They threw in a Game of Thrones (GoT) reference, along with the hashtag “Modi is coming” – a play on an iconic phrase from the hit TV series, “Winter is coming”.
Attached was a picture of Ned Stark in a meme-famous pose, with the words, “Brace yourself Congress”.
Using pop culture references on social media is usually a fool-proof way to make content shareable and relatable… except in this case, the BJP Karnataka IT Cell did not think the meme through.
Ned Stark, the character in the meme, is a virtuous and honourable character, quite the patriarch. And it doesn’t come as a surprise that the BJP would want to liken Modi to him.
But everyone who’s watched Game of Thrones knows what happens to Ned Stark – he dies. At the end of Season One, Ned Stark is beheaded in front of members of his family, making him one of the shortest-lived major characters in the series.
This little GoT fact didn’t go unnoticed to several Twitter users, who were quick to point out how BJP Karnataka’s tweet was rather… short-sighted.
Check out some of these responses to BJP Karnataka.
#spoileralert uh oh pic.twitter.com/z0KpPiCFAy
— Prabha Raj (@deepsealioness) April 22, 2018
Thank you @BJP4Karnataka for giving us the idea of what's going to happen on the Results day ! #BJPAcceptsDefeat pic.twitter.com/pq1bObq2BT
— Saral Patel (@SaralPatel_) April 22, 2018
Why are u guys cursing @narendramodi such an ending? Even we don’t do that pic.twitter.com/yv6pgCmj5J
— Suryanarayan Ganesh (@gsurya) April 22, 2018
Close Enough! #GameOfCows #CowWalkers pic.twitter.com/G780XODlMC
— Priyanka Naik (@bucksamor) August 22, 2017
And we all know what happened to Ned Stark https://t.co/6n8H5nd9SF
— Srivatsa (@srivatsayb) April 22, 2018
#BJP IT Cell scored a self goal
— Straight Forward (@Raja_Africa) April 23, 2018
Known for Weird Analogies, the Character meme chosen to represent #Modi doesn’t emerge as Winner
Is this what going to happen in #BattleForKarnataka?@BJP4Karnataka @BJPKarITCell https://t.co/6tcDZMgcYj pic.twitter.com/qC4VDTnmrK
Modi is coming.
— crimemaster gogo (@logical_sutta) April 22, 2018
The following gif is more accurate pic.twitter.com/LmyvuyYIS3