The declaration follows the appearance of posters featuring Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, as a QR code with the message, “Give 50% commission on PhonePe, and get your job done.”
The opposition Congress and the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) are allegedly engaged in a posters war in the election-year state of Madhya Pradesh. This week, a digital payment company, PhonePe, issued an explicit warning to the Congress party over its utilization of its logo in advertisements it put up to critique the BJP.
PhonePe Response:
“The logo, which is by rights the trademark of the company, is registered, and any usage of our intellectual property in an unauthorized manner would rightly result in legal lawsuits. We request @INCMP to take down all the advertisements in the form of posters and banners that visibly shows our company’s emblem and colours, the business stated in a statement posted on the microblogging website Twitter on Monday.
Furthermore, it asserted: “The company PhonePe highly objects to the use of their company trademark logo by any party not associated with them in an unlicensed way, whether they are political or not. We are not connected and related to any political party whatsoever.Â
Later this year, Madhya will hold elections for the assembly, and the BJP and the Congress are squabbling bitterly about who will win.
The PhonePe declaration came days after Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and a prominent member of the BJP, was featured on posters that sported the PhonePe logo and accused the state of committing “50 percent commission” fraud.
The posters included the CM’s image on a mock-up of a QR code and the message “50% lao PhonePe, kaam karao [give 50% commission on PhonePe and get your job done]”.
The state branch of the Congress had earlier this week tweeted about the poster.
Before last year’s assembly elections, which the Congress easily won, the party waged a similar campaign against the previous Basavraj Bommai-led BJP administration in Karnataka. The “40 percent sarkara” campaign was thought to be a reference to the “40% commission” controversy that broke out in April of last year following the passing of contractor Santosh Patil, who was located in Belagavi. Former state minister and BJP politician K.S. Eshwarappa were charged by Patil with requesting a 40% commission for a government project in an alleged suicide note.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s posters in Madhya Pradesh are said to have appeared after Kamal Nath, a Congress leader, and former chief minister, received identical ones with the message “Wanted Commission Nath.”
Although the BJP denied involvement in the Kamal Nath posters and accused the Congress of engaging in “dirty politics,” the MP Congress claimed the BJP was using such tactics out of fear of losing support in the state.
