Chandigarh: Punjab’s political battleground has currently taken an unusual form: Jurassic Park. The political discourse has turned away from governance, policy, economy, and law and order, towards dinosaurs.
It may have begun as a political jibe by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann during the early stages of his tenure—mocking the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) as a relic of the past—but the beleaguered SAD has spun it around into a “comeback” narrative, with a series of AI memes and social media posts highlighting its performance in the Tarn Taran byelection and Zila Parishad polls.
The underlying message? Akalis will win the 2027 assembly polls.
“Punjab ch dinosaur vaapis aa sakde ne, Akali nahi (dinosaurs can return to Punjab, but the Akalis cannot),” Mann had been saying over the past few years. Several such statements by Mann resurfaced in 2025—both in rallies and speeches, rapidly entering the political discourse and circulating widely online.
In response, the Akalis have, in recent weeks, rolled out a full-blown digital meme campaign, with one of its popular lines being: “Tu pher aen kari, Punjab ch dinosaur vi aange te Akali vee; saambh sakde ho te saambh leyo (you wait and watch, both dinosaurs and Akalis will return to Punjab; handle them if you can).”
In one AI-generated clip, party chief Sukhbir Badal walks confidently with a dinosaur, with a plaque saying “2027” hanging from its neck, a pointed reference to the party’s claim that it will win the 2027 assembly polls.
But it didn’t take long for the chief minister to fire back at the SAD campaign, claiming the party’s revival after years in the political wilderness. His response? “The Akalis want to take Punjab back to the Jurassic era, not towards progress.”
“It’s a lizard blown up as a dinosaur,” the chief minister quipped at a press conference last week.
The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) social media network also released a meme showing a lizard being blown up into a dinosaur, with Mann towering over it and Badal.
As the “Jurassic” narrative permeates Punjab politics, the Congress has termed the campaign “silly”. The state party chief, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, said in an interview with a YouTube channel last week, “People will not vote for the Akalis because they are seeing Sukhbir being shown as moving around with a chained dinosaur; people might vote for them out of sheer sympathy.”
Also Read: A state with 17 DGPs: Punjab’s policing paradox amid a spate of cold-blooded murders
How it all began
Mann’s dinosaur metaphor dates back to his political campaigns between 2022 and 2024, when he repeatedly likened the SAD leadership to dinosaurs, suggesting they were irrelevant in contemporary Punjab politics, much like the extinct species.
The metaphor was meant to underline that the era dominated by the Badal political family was over and that SAD was no longer a force to reckon with in the state’s political future.
In 2025, many of Mann’s lines resurfaced, and his jibe that “dinosaurs may return, but the Badals won’t come back to power” caught the popular political imagination.
Encouraged by Tarn Taran bypoll results, where the Akali Dal finished second, SAD strategically embraced the imagery and turned it into a positive narrative.
The campaign got further boost after the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti election results last week, where the Akalis performed well in Bathinda, Faridkot and Muktsar.
Soon, SAD posted a series of visuals and reels on Instagram and Facebook, showing dinosaurs alongside Badal, with tongue-in-cheek captions implying that dinosaurs are returning to life in Punjab, just as the party is.
The party’s Tarn Taran team released an AI-generated meme showing Badal driving a tractor trolley carrying young dinosaurs.
Several short follow-up clips circulated on Instagram, juxtaposing prehistoric reptilian imagery with scenes from Badal’s rallies and campaign moments, reframing Mann’s jibe into one of resurgence.
Other AI visuals show Badal riding a dinosaur chasing Mann or a “SAD” dinosaur crushing a broom—AAP’s election symbol—under its foot, as a symbolic representation of the party’s political “comeback”.
Akali supporters have also released videos of their vehicles decorated with plastic toy dinosaurs. A supporter even went up to Badal and gifted him a toy dinosaur as he arrived for a public meeting following the Zila Parishad results.
Why SAD is pushing the dinosaur narrative now
Political watchers say the shift in SAD’s messaging comes against the backdrop of the party’s recent electoral gains. In the Tarn Taran bypoll, SAD finished second—a marked improvement after its poor 2022 assembly and 2024 parliamentary election showing.
In the Zila Parishad and Block Samiti elections this month, SAD also improved its ground presence, winning hundreds of local seats in a boost for its cadres.
These results have prompted SAD leaders to claim that their political fortunes are reviving. They have used the dinosaur metaphor as an emblem of that rebirth, turning an attack into a comeback slogan.
Not surprisingly, the ruling AAP has not let SAD’s campaign go unchallenged.
Its social media accounts and activists have also been posting AI memes and videos mocking SAD’s dinosaur motif. One widely shared clip with the caption “sher agge nikli dinosaur dee hawa (the dinosaur’s wind is coming out before the lion)”, underscores their narrative that SAD is merely blowing hot air—reinforcing Mann’s public jibes.
Another AI meme shows Mann towering over Badal riding a dinosaur, as Badal runs away after Mann “roars”.
Many AAP-aligned Facebook pages have shared Mann’s response that SAD was making too much of tiny gains.
“The Akalis are number three (in the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections). They have 10, 15, 8 seats in villages, where they are in the third position. They don’t have one full constituency anywhere,” the chief minister said at a press conference. “And if they think that they can win in batches of 10-15, and claim that the dinosaurs are back, then they are welcome to live with the dinosaurs.” He added the Akalis are stuck in the past.
In another interaction with the media last week, Mann reiterated that while his government was trying to bring modern technology to Punjab’s students, “they (the Akalis) are trying to take us back lakhs of years to the age of the dinosaurs”. He said, “Blowing air into lizards is not going to make a dinosaur.”
The Congress also jumped on to the dinosaur theme. Party spokesperson Jaskaran Singh Kahlon came to a press conference last week with a dinosaur-shaped plastic balloon, and then deflated it with a pin—making the point that the Akalis had been defeated by the Congress multiple times over, which it intends to do in the 2027 assembly elections as well.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: AAP retains Tarn Taran. But the real winner could be Akali Dal