CHENNAI: "Kelambu Kelambu Andhu Pochi" (It's all over, get lost) from Rajinikanth-starrer "Kaala"; "It's Time To Give it Back Maame" from upcoming Vijay-starrer "Varisu"; and "Evanai Irundhal Enna" (Whoever it maybe) from Jayam Ravi's "Thani Oruvan". These are some of the high decibel songs that echoed on Twitter on Monday.
They were used as a cheeky background score for what turned out to be the popular Twitter visual of the day – Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi walking out of the legislative assembly hall as chief minister M K Stalin watched with a smile on his face. This, even as he recorded his objection to the governor not reading the speech “prepared with his consent”.
After the high-octane drama that played out in the historic assembly hall, the IT wings of DMK and BJP set out to work to grab social media space and ensure their narratives-memes were top trenders.
The tweets in support of the DMK government with the hashtag #GetoutRavi was in the nature of Stalin ‘showing the door to the governor’, while the BJP IT wing insisted that the walkout by the governor was indeed an insult to the chief minister.
While the original video was a cacophony of voices, showing the high drama playing out inside the assembly hall, the meme creators dulled the noise with suitable songs for their narrative. The video memes in support of the governor had the popular background score of Rajini-starrer ‘Baasha’ as he walks out of the house.
Meme creators did some quick photoshop, capturing the facial expression of Stalin as he looked at Ravi walking past. While DMK supporters called it a smirk, Ravi's supporters said they could see fear in Stalin’s eyes.
The tweets in support of the DMK said ‘Stalin is more dangerous than (his father and former DMK patriarch) Karunanidhi’ and that he belongs to the ‘MISA’ (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) batch, referring to his detention during the Emergency. One tweet said the governor invited trouble upon himself for vouching for ‘Sanatana Dharma’ in the state when even Prime Minister Narendra Modi stuck to sprouting the Thirukkural in his speeches.
On the other hand, tweets in support of the governor circulated photos of Stalin in torn shirt, meeting the then governor in 2017 after he was evicted from the assembly soon after a trust vote in favour of the then Edappadi K Palaniswami government. Another meme showed higher education minister K Ponmudy waving his hands at Ravi and said his act was far from ‘ministerly’.
While twitteratis had a field day taking potshots at the CM and the governor, #ThunivuFDFS and #CelebrationofVarisu managed to trend too, albeit with less vigor.
