If you are a voter in Telangana and need a haircut, a shave, a meal or even someone to take care of your child, don't be surprised if your local candidate decides to help you out.
In the last few days, several photographs and videos have gone viral in the election-bound state, showing candidates performing all kinds of tasks to endear themselves to voters.
While the opposition party candidates are yet to get into the campaign mode due to the delay in seat-sharing arrangement among the partners of the grand alliance, leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi have gone far ahead in their canvassing ploys.
The speaker of the dissolved assembly S Madhusudhana Chary, who is canvassing for himself in Bhupalpalli constituency, gatecrashed into a barber’s shop on Monday and took to shaving a customer’s beard, much to the latter’s surprise. He also played with scissors on the head of another customer. The next act was feeding an old man eating his lunch outside his hut.
A couple of days ago, Chary even played the role of a pallbearer in Ramnagar Colony in Bhupalpalli for a 35-year-old villager, Pendyala Kishan, who died of kidney failure.
TRS candidate from Mahbubnagar, Srinivas Goud, has become a one-stop shop for virtually any service under the sky, be it construction work, ironing your clothes, fetching water or cleaning rice.
Spinning a yarn usually comes easy to politicians but sitting on the loom is not quite the same thing. Some aspiring lawmakers were seen keenly pulling a few strings in weavers' settlements, hoping to pull at heartstrings and also posing for the camera.
But voters may be able to avail of these services only till December 5 when campaigning ends in the state. All the 119 seats in Telangana will vote on December 7.