Elections in Uttar Pradesh(UP)are expected to be held in early 2017. It’s far enough in the future for the Election Commission to not look at what political parties are doing with their grassroot campaigns, but for those in the fray, the battle has begun. Don’t take our word for it. Just look at the poster war that’s already underway.

With the highest number of legislative constituencies (403) in the country, UP is a high-stakes arena. The contest is between four players: Samajwadi Party (SP), who are currently in power; Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Congress.With no quarters given or sought, a game of diss-thy-rival is playing out in public, with posters on every pole and every wall,and banners hanging overhead.No space nor subject is sacred, and the sacred are freely used to make political points.

Political commentator Sanjay Bhatnagar said that while there has been nothing new about parties taking jibes at each other with posters,this year is notable. “This time around though creativity as well as the audacity of the graphics have gone overboard,” he said.He felt that the religious elements were unnecessary:“Posters can grab eyeballs and put the message across without slander and sacrilege.”

Mahant Narendra Giri, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad, agreed Bhatnagar. He said that party workers and supporters should refrain from using images of gods and mythological figures to gain political mileage.

However, no one on the ground is taking Giri or Bhatnagar’s advice.

The minority wing of the Gorakhpur unit of the BJP, in particular, has been churning out especially outrageous visuals at regular intervals. Featuring the controversial five-time Gorakhpur member of Parliament Yogi Adityanath., famous for his religious purification drive,has been depicted as Hanuman, Ram, Bhagat Singh, and a tiger (with his opponents standing around as a herd of donkeys).

These posters talk of building the Ram temple, ensuring the safety of Muslims, and freeing UP from the shackles of “slavery” once Yogi Adityanath becomes the mukhya mantri (chief minister).

Irfan Ahmad, one of the people putting up posters eulogising Adityanath and a former member of the working executive of the BJP’s minority cell in UP, said he gives the graphic designers an idea which they turn into a “visual”.

Reportedly, the leaders of the BJP’s state unit are not particularly happy with Adityanath’sposters. The party has yet to decide on the face that will lead the BJP in the state assembly polls and also the lines on which elections are to be fought. Consequently, there are rival posters to possibly give both voters and the party a little more choice.

The state BJP president, Keshav Prasad Maurya, has appeared as the saviour Krishna  in several posters. One of them depicts Draupadi’s disrobing scene from the Mahabharata. The distressed Draupadi personifies Uttar Pradesh while Maurya, in keeping with his Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh roots, is the one saving her (but naturally).

Leaders of the rival parties – SP’s Azam Khan, the current Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati –figure on the poster as the Kauravas, busy disrobing Draupadi/ Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati’s followers have taken a more aggressive approach. An improbably fair Kali atop the corpse of RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, she holds aloft the severed head of the textile minister Smriti Irani. Narendra Modi is beaming in one corner and a cartoon elephant–the BSP symbol–looks out beatifically.

This poster was presumably issued in response to Bhagwat’s remarks on phasing out caste-based reservations in education and jobs.One wonders about the poster maker’s knowledge of Hindu mythology though. If Bhagwat is Shiva, at Kali’s feet, he would also be the one who is able to make Mayawati stop – that’s how the rampaging Kali was made to pause in the myth.

Another poster that went viral on the internet was by hardcore BJP loyalist, Rupesh Pandey. This one taunted the SP, accusing its top leaders of land-grabbing in the state. Following the traction this poster gained, the BJP took note and circulated an email, asking people to expose cases of land-grabbing by the SP showing just how far reaching the affects of these posters are. BJP insiders also told 101reporters.com that the issue might find a place in the party manifesto.

Pandey, who has brought out a flurry of posters hailing BJP leaders, saidthe BJP had nothing to do with the content of his posters, and that the messages he puts out are his personal opinions. Hailing from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, Pandey said he was an ardent follower of the PM, BJP president Amit Shah and Maurya.

However, over-enthusiasm does not always fetch results. For instance, some Allahabad Youth Congress members were at the receiving end of their own party’s ire in the first quarter of 2016, after they brought out posters pleading that Priyanka Gandhi should jump into the fray, and save the state unit of the Congress. This was seen as a thumbs-down to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi and party president Sonia Gandhi.

The family, sorry party, was quick to act. Those whose names were on the poster, Ahmed and Dubey, were isolated. Other local leaders distanced themselves from the poster, declaring it the opinion of the party’s state youth cadre, and the guilty poster was consigned to oblivion.

No political party disclosed whether funds have been allocated to carry out these poster and banner wars. It’s as though all these printed materials are being churned out without cost, fuelled merely by the zeal of fanboys.

It’s worth keeping in mind the virulent objections parties like BJP have had to magazine covers in which cricketer MS Dhoni’s face was photoshopped into an image of Vishnu. That, we are told, show a lack of respect to the religion. These posters, on the other hand, do not.

Once the eye of the Election Commission is upon the state, no doubt the religious tone of the campaigns will fade or decrease. For now, though, political devotees think nothing of giving religious overtones to their hero-worship.