Singing the BJP’s tune, the songsters taking the ‘400 paar’ message to voters

“Yeh lahar nahi lalkaar hai, abki baar 400 paar hai (this is not a wave but a dare, this time we will cross 400).”

Meet 15-year-old Prerna Pancharya from Rajasthan’s Bikaner whose song full of the BJP’s poll catchphrases has garnered 1.2 million views in three weeks and is a massive hit with BJP supporters as the song does the rounds of social media.

Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama and a Nehru jacket, Prerna, who started off singing bhajans, also sings of “Modi ka parivar (Modi’s family)” and “Modi ki guarantee (Modi’s guarantee)” and highlights “India’s standing in the world”. The teenager is not the only singer singing about Modi’s return for a third term and the BJP’s election issues. There is also her “inspiration” Kavi Singh, a 25-year-old singer from Rohtak in Haryana and 31-year-old Parveen Boora who is also a Haryanvi, part of a group of singers who dabble in a genre that has broadly come to be labelled as Hindutva pop.

For the 15-year-old, this is not a new terrain. She has made music about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past. Her first song on Modi was called “Chowkidar (Watchman”), a reference to the BJP’s 2019 poll slogan for the PM and was released leading up to that year’s general elections. It has around 20 million views to date. The themes she sings about range from China to the Ayodhya Ram Temple consecration.

“I met (Union Transport and Highways Minister) Nitin Gadkari, who told me he had seen the Chowkidar song. Even (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah featured my song once at a rally,” she tells The Indian Express.

Though Prerna’s family has no affiliation with the BJP, they claim to have good ties with several top party leaders, including current Bikaner MP and Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. “We