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Malayalis Respond to BJP Leader Saroj Pandey’s Threat With #GougeDa

Memes and posts poked fun at the BJP following the threat by the BJP national general secretary to gouge out the eyes of Kerala CPI(M) workers' eyes.
GougeDa

After the BJP national general secretary Saroj Pandey threatened to gouge out the eyes of CPI(M) activists in Kerala, Malayalis have responded with hilarious posts on the social media with the hashtag #GougeDa.

Referring to the Jana Raksha Yatra (Save the People March) of the BJP in Kerala, Saroj Pandey said on Sunday, “This march that we have started, that our national president has started, was to ensure that in future if our workers are shown eyes repeatedly, then it is certain that we will enter homes and gouge those eyes out.”

Users on Twitter and Facebook promptly came up with memes and posts poking fun at the BJP and challenging the party. Many people also put up their own photos wearing sunglasses.

Superstar Mammootty, who likes to wear sunglasses, was a natural choice for sunglass-themed memes.

The picture of the character played by Malayalam superstar Mohanlal in the 1980 film Manjil Virinja Pookkal was used to challenge the BJP in this meme.

Yesteryears’ Malayalam star Jayan seems to be taunting the BJP in this meme.

Many users mocked the BJP leader’s threat by terming it a “kokkachi”. Kokkachi is an imaginary being, whose name is often invoked by parents trying to coax their little children to obey. Threats such as “If you don’t eat dinner, Kokkachi will come and catch you” are supposed to do the trick.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and former CM VS Achuthanandan are supposedly laughing at the BJP’s kokkachi in this post.

Other popular characters in the Malayalam meme world such as “kunjava” (little baby) also found mention in some posts.

Iconic revolutionary Che, who is omnipresent in Kerala, could not be left behind.

Badal Saroj, the Madhya Pradesh State Secretary of the CPI(M), also joined in the hashtag protest.

Apart from human beings and imaginary beings, simians also found mention in the #GougeDa posts.

GougeDa - Monkey

 

People from other States also joined the Malayalis in responding to the BJP’s threats.

 

The Tamils were duly thanked by a user.

#GougeDa has turned out to be yet another hit hashtag which the Keralites have used to hit back at the BJP, after #PoMoneModi, #AlavalathiShaji, and #KnappanYogi. #PoMoneModi had surfaced after Narendra Modi compared Kerala with Somalia. #AlavalathiShaji was used to mock BJP national President Amit Shah, with “Alavalathi” being a good-for-nothing person, and Shaji (a common name in Kerala) being a mock reference to “Shah ji”. The hashtag #KnappanYogi became popular during the recent visit of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to Kerala. Knappan is a Malayalam term used to refer to an incompetent person, the word having entered the Malayalam vocabulary in reference to Arthur Lowland Knapp, a British civil servant who was posted in Malabar during colonial times.

Meanwhile, Malayalam actor Alencier Ley Lopez took the protest a step further, by filing a police complaint against the threat by the BJP. He reached the police station with a black cloth tied over his eyes.

Alencier files complaing - gougeda.jpg

 

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