Vote Or Suffer 'Tinday': Swiggy Instamart Takes Freebie Route To Encourage Mumbai Voters

As Maharashtra goes out to vote today, food delivery platform Swiggy’s quick commerce arm Instamart is running a creative campaign urging people of the state to exercise their franchise.  

Voting is being held in a single phase for all the 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra on Wednesday.

Swiggy Instamart has been reportedly sending free ‘tinday’, or Indian round gourd, to some customers in Mumbai who are ordering from the platform. The free ‘tinday’ campaign seems to be a satirical take on the people not going out to vote. Swiggy Instamart’s message is clear— If you won’t go out and vote, you may get stuck with unwanted freebies like ‘tinday’.

Here is what Swiggy Instamart has to say about this unique campaign.

Swiggy Instamart’s campaign of sending free tinday to Mumbai voters is going viral on social media. A user with the name “Eesh” has shared the image of the paper bag that came with the vegetable, which is largely disliked by many.

“Instamart randomly gave free tinday with my delivery today and a rather fun message also. You already know the rhyming word,” she wrote on X, along with the picture. 

The paper bag carried the message with the free tinday.

“Didn’t choose tinday but stuck with tinday? Much like the tinda you didn’t order and now have to deal with, if you don’t vote today, you’ll be stuck with a government you didn’t choose,” the message read.

This clever campaign points out that if people do not go out to vote today, they will not be able to shape the state’s leadership.

“Cast your vote. Own your choices,” the delivery platform advised.

The user referred to Instamart’s wordplay on tinday rhyming with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s surname.

However, this did not go down well with some other users on X.

A user named Sandeep Garg said that the Election Commission must take action against Instamart.

“Shame on Instamart, who's behind this surrogate political ad? @SwiggyInstamart  must apologise and  @ECISVEEP must take action,” he wrote on X.

Polling for the Maharashtra Assembly election began at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday. The voting will continue till 6:00 p.m. The battle of power in Maharashtra will see a direct clash between the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance and the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

As of 11:00 a.m., the voter turnout across the state was reported at 18.1%.

The counting of votes for Maharashtra Assembly elections will take place on Nov. 23.