REPORTERS’ DIARY : DAKHNI RULES IN CAMPAIGN

It pays for leaders, whether local or national, to connect with people in their language and, more importantly, dialect. With Dakhni ruling the election campaign in Telangana, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Hyderabad public meeting, used Dakhni to strike a chord with voters. He said “BRS, BJP, AIMIM nakko, BJP ko ich vote dhenge”. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, throughout his poll campaign, has been using biting satire in Dakhni to corner Prime Minister. A journalist from a media house in north India, who was here to cover the election campaign, opined that their audience liked Dakhni so much so that they prefer a spokesperson who could speak the dialect, which sounds like an amalgamation of Hindustani, Telugu and Marathi.