Image courtesy: Report on Hindustantimes.com
The sight of Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India weeping on India Today as election results did not stand up to his exit poll predictions is not an edifying sight. Watching grown people cry is bad enough; but to collapse in public because you were so, so wrong and your bombast was so pathetically absurd, sad.
The anchors on India Today, especially Rahul Kanwal who could not have been so happy himself with the results, given the amount of money he has spent on butter to cosy up to the BJP, worked hard to console Gupta. After all, most exit polls, including Gupta’s, predicted that the Narendra Modi-led NDA would better its 2019 tally. As of now, 17.25 on June 4, they look hard-pressed to even cross 300. Let’s forget Modi’s own expansive boast of 400-plus Lok Sabha seats.
But we all know Mr Modi. He’ll now pretend that he meant he’d win Varanasi by more than 400 votes and his pet news anchors will nod their heads like dummies and allow him to get away with it. As they did when he claimed he was not born biologically, or that no one had heard of Mahatma Gandhi until Richard Attenborough’s film was made.
That the exit polls got these elections very wrong is no longer news. I have never been a fan of exit polls. And not just because they get it wrong. By pre-empting what is an important result, they also leach away the essence of why we vote. And from a media perspective, they are nothing more than big fat drama for TV channels to make money while pushing their favourite party, person and so on. They serve no news purpose at all. Some cynics believe that exit polls are also a way for TV channels to pay even more obeisance to the ruling party and especially the current deity of self-avowed non-biological origins.
Why then was Gupta crying? Because he had been caught out? Because he was scared? Because he was forced to lie and now his reputation might take a blow? Why did the giant master manipulator of all elections, Prashant Kishor have that meltdown on Karan Thapar’s show and then almost vanish from public eye? He also claimed big victories for the BJP in Bengal. Which alas has not come to pass.
As I scrolled through “news” channels today, and their social media feeds, it was fascinating to watch how they tackled the unexpected happenings of the day. Since the India Alliance and the Congress Party did somewhat better than expected, the hooting celebrations and brash masculinity which our TV channels are known for, was missing in action. Instead, they were forced to be a bit toned down. Try, as much as they could, to regain some lost journalistic ground. It is too late for that of course.
The focus early in the day seemed to be to concentrate on BJP wins and filter out the ambient sound of losses. For instance, India Today TV presented Rahul Gandhi’s huge margin in Rae Bareli as a concession of defeat by the losing BJP candidate. A neat sidestep to miss the actual news and thus upset the bosses less.
Times Now had a different tactic of mentioning the BJP as often as possible, even when one of its NDA partners was doing the hard graft. And also, they mentioned the Congress Party and the India Alliance as little as possible. Navika Kumar – is that her name – had a little sideshow about Sanjay Jha and the Congress Party. A complete waste of time in the context of these elections but anything to show the Opposition in a bad light.
NDTV appeared to focus on wins and losses for the BJP and Congress, which is intriguing given the Adani ownership.
Meanwhile, the story which should be top of the news and is not is the sudden slowdown in counting and in the release of figures from the Election Commission website. For instance, Shashi Tharoor’s lead over Rajeev Chandrashekhar in Thiruvananthapuram barely moved from 15000 to 16000 in over an hour an a half, from 15.30 to 1700.
See you tomorrow for an update on the great show!
As for now, the Great Man has not kept his promises. Who knows what will happen, eh?
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Friday, and when necessary, on other days as well. Her views here are personal.