The agitation over the Amarnath land row may have died down, but the BJP appears to be banking on the idea that reviving its memory may mobilise voters in Jammu to come out in support of the saffron party. And what better way to do it than through television advertisements.

A case in point is the strangely familiar ‘jingle’ that accompanies a political commercial on local TV channels. The refrain goes ‘Jan Jan bole Nirmal Nirmal’, but it doesn’t take very long to figure out that the song is just another version of the devotional ‘Bam Bam Bhole’ song that became the Amarnath agitation’s anthem.

The ‘Nirmal’ in the new lyrics refers to the former state president of the BJP and its candidate for the Gandhi Nagar Assembly constituency, Prof Nirmal Singh. “We wanted to keep the original song, ‘Bam Bam Bole’, but the Election Commission objected to it. This is why we had to change the lyrics,” said Singh, who was closely involved with the production of the advertisement as well as the song, right from picking the singer to the lyricist. Needless to say, only dedicated supporters of the agitation qualified for the role.

The singer, for one, is passionate about the issue and had approached Nirmal Singh to propose that he would do the singing.

“Police action in the land transfer to the Amarnath Shrine Board was horrible. I heard that the police tried to douse the dead body of Kuldeep Verma with wine. Kuldeep laid down his life for the transfer of land to the shrine board,” said Surinder Singh Manhas, a curly-haired young man of 34 who works as an audio engineer with Big 92.7 FM and is also a music director and playback singer.

... contd.