The battle for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest civic body, has taken a cinematic turn with the emergence of high-quality AI-generated campaign videos featuring Marvel Superheroes.
In a viral trend sweeping social media ahead of the elections, the Indian National Congress (INC), Shiv Sena, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are being represented by Thanos, The Hulk, and Tony Stark, respectively.
The videos, which utilise advanced deepfake technology and voice cloning, depict these Hollywood icons delivering speeches in fluent Marathi and Hindi, complete with party scarves and official slogans.
While it remains unclear if these are officially sanctioned by the parties’ IT cells or the work of independent rogue creators, the content is being shared widely as part of the election discourse.
The trend appears to have started with a video of Thanos, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ultimate villain, holding a press conference for the Congress party, from the Instagram account @incthanos.
Responding to the threat, the Shiv Sena has deployed The Hulk. His handle, @shivsenahulk, describes him as a “Shiv Sainik” committed to the state’s resolve.
The most polished of the three is the BJP’s entry, featuring Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). He positions Thanos as a danger to the city and launches a catchy slogan: “Abki baar, Thanos ki haar”. His profile, @bjptonystark, lists him as “BJP President, Mumbai.”
The Rise of Synthetic Campaigning
This phenomenon highlights the rapidly evolving landscape of the Creator Economy in Indian politics. With tools like Midjourney (for images) and ElevenLabs (for voice cloning), political messaging is moving beyond traditional speeches into the realm of synthetic media, i.e. content artificially generated by AI.
While early political deepfakes in India focused on translating real speeches into different languages, this new wave embraces total fiction and pop culture satire.
The use of unauthorised likenesses of Hollywood actors raises questions about Deepfake Ethics and copyright. However, in the chaotic arena of Indian elections, viral “shareability” often trumps legal concerns. For now, Mumbai’s voters are watching to see if Iron Man can actually stop the Mad Titan at the ballot box.
