Amid the Lok Sabha election results, the internet buzzed with memes from across the country. From movie clips featuring various leaders' faces to witty responses, the internet celebrated with memes and reels.
The results surprised many, as the BJP, with only 240 seats, failed to reach the halfway mark of 272. Surprise losses in Uttar Pradesh and a complete miss in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, despite state president K Annamalai's claims, fueled a flurry of memes reacting to the election's unexpected twists.
A lot of relationships and friendships came under a cloud.
Another was the relationship between Modi and his customary slogans ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Jai Shree Ram’. When he addressed BJP cadre on June 5, Modi replaced ‘Jai Shree Ram’ with ‘Jai Jagannath’ in his address. Several netizens attributed this to BJP’s devastating defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad, where Ayodhaya and the newly constructed Ram temple are situated. Others speculated whether this ode could be because of the party’s resounding victory in Odisha, which is home to the Shree Jagannath Temple. Nevertheless, memes were almost immediate.
The BJP’s ‘400 par’ slogan became meme material.
The BJP, despite its regular poor performance in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, managed to win a Lok Sabha seat for the first time in Kerala. The winning candidate from Thrissur, actor Suresh Gopi, has been the subject of most memes, mostly disappointment for letting the right wing party “open an account” in the state.
One meme even included a scene from Suresh Gopi’s movie where he is shown to represent Kerala joining the ‘cow belt’, a term for BJP-ruled states in the north.
Others, particularly Tamil netizens, were disheartened by Suresh Gopi’s victory and questioned how Malayalis would advise against voting for actors but ended up doing the same in Thrissur.
Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu Annamalai’s nickname bestowed upon him by his opponents—‘Attukutty’ (lamb/kid goat) — saw a resurgence larger than any Modi-wave promised in the state. The nickname is an unfortunate (for the BJP) reference to Annamalai famously having declared all of his assets comprised of only “4 goats and cows” and some land. After he lost in Coimbatore to DMK’s Ganapathy Rajkumar by a massive 1,18,068 vote-margin, Tamils on Twitter and Instagram repurposed various Kollywood dialogues saying it was time for ‘mutton biriyani’.
In one such reel captioned “POV [Point of View] Coimbatore people right now” actors Sivakarthikeyan and Soori’s scene from their Seemaraja (2018) plays out. Sivakarthikeyan or SK as he’s popularly called, says, “Yellaila ore velladdu kariya vechainga paaru, thinne vazhikuthuda.” Soori nods along to this statement. For non-Tamil speakers, the dialogue is about how he attended a feast where they served such delicious goat meat, his mouth still hurts from the quantities he consumed. On the ground, as each round of counting put Annamalai further behind, DMK cadres began celebrating by distributing mutton biriyani.
It may be noted, such a reaction from anti-BJP people in Coimbatore, also sits within the larger political backdrop of various Sangh Parivar affiliates’ repeated attempts to communalise biriyani in Tamil Nadu. Over multiple occasions, Muslim-owned biriyani shops in Coimbatore and Chennai amongst others, have been absurdly and falsely accused of mixing birth control pills in the dish in order to “reduce the Hindu population”.
Another popular reference in posts celebrating the BJP’s defeat in Coimbatore has been to the widely-celebrated 1994 political satire Amaidhipadai, starring Sathyaraj and Manivannan. As chance would have it, the film is even set in Palladam–one of the Assembly segments of Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency. In the film, Mani (Manivanan) is a corrupt politician angry with his party for not fielding him as a candidate in the film’s fictional elections. Mani secretly gets Amavasai (Sathyaraj) to stand against his own party as an independent candidate.
In one particular scene that is now doing the rounds in Reels edited with references to Annamalai’s loss, Mani askes Amavasai, “Ennapa, deposit vaangiduviya?” (will you manage to get your deposit back?) To this, Amavasai guilefully replies that he doesn’t mind either way. Mani observes dryly that: “Unnaku ennapa, ella yein kai kaasu” (of course, what’s it to you? It’s from my personal funds.) In some variations of the Reel, Annamalai’s face has been edited onto Ammavasai’s and Narendra Modi’s face on Mani’s.
And in Tamil Nadu, how would there not be memes and Reels based on one of the state’s most beloved and omnipresent of comedians—Vadivelu? Here, Vadivelu’s dialogues are made stand-ins for the AIADMK and BJP’s current embattled relationship:
After the AIADMK’s dramatic walk-out of the NDA, the party clearly has not been able to salvage its reputation as BJP’s ‘B-Team’ as they were widely criticised to have become from the strong regional party it had up to Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016. Like BJP, AIADMK has also drawn a blank in the state and has even come in third after BJP in some key constituencies like Coimbatore and Madurai.
Tamil memes and eeels are also poking fun at Modi and the BJP’s repeated claims throughout campaigning that the “Lotus will bloom in Tamil Nadu”. This Instagrammer shows us how:
Despite the BJP earning a solid vote share in the Telugu states, the national party needed the support of its ally, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). This phenomenon spurred several memes showing the BJP and the Congress trying to woo Chandrababu Naidu, the leader of the TDP. Similar memes have been made of Nitish Kumar and his party Janata Dal (United) (JDU), who will also be a deciding factor in who forms the Union government.
Similarly, there were also several memes on the astounding victory of the TDP over their long rival YSRCP. Andhra Pradesh also had their Assembly Election simultaneously where actor turned politician Pawan Kalyan’s party Jana Sena Party (JSP) emerged victorious. This also led to a rise in memes, most of them from his movies. One also showed him and Chandrababu Naidu dancing together to the Oscar winning Telugu song ‘Naatu Naatu’.
Here are more memes that capture of the pulse of what netizens thought of the results of the 2024 General Elections: