Opinion On the poll trip

Welcome to poll-time India, yet again. In the last four months since the Lok Sabha elections, we’ve already witnessed two rounds of by-elections in various states, and now we have state elections in Haryana and Maharashtra.

ABP’s Election Special on Monday arrived in Yamuna Nagar (Haryana), where we participated in an unruly meeting with local political leaders from different parties. They dutifully listed out their party’s poll promises and trashed those of the other parties. The action then swung to members of the audience, comprising supporters of said parties who vociferously supported their leaders’ positions in a free-for-all slanging match.

While Deepak Chaurasia took India News to Bhiwani (Haryana) for a similarly hot-headed charcha, NDTV India rode pillion with news anchor Abhigyan Prakash into Bhiwandi (Maharashtra), known for its textile industry. We listened to workers at the power looms, local journalists and streetside hawkers, one of whom was an elderly gentleman from Uttar Pradesh (“Oh, I’m from Banaras,” exclaimed a delighted hail-fellow-well-met Prakash), who has been in Bhiwandi for close to 20 years. No wonder, the local people identified north Indians as a  major issue in the city.

Another major issue during elections is one that not many people have hitherto noticed. It’s the microphone. The microphones are often so close to the campaigners’ mouths that on TV, the speeches sound distorted; meanwhile, TV microphones in the hands of the anchors or correspondents, as they thrust them this way and that to capture what individuals say, are often waylaid by other individuals who want a say of their own. The result is that we sometimes cannot hear what either has to say.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat suffered no such speech defect: his address in Nagpur on Friday was crystal clear to the ear. Which could be the reason it annoyed many people who heard it — on Doordarshan. Should the public broadcaster telecast the speech of the RSS chief, became the topic of heated discussion on TV news. The minister of information and broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar, has said that DD News covered Bhagwat’s speech because it was “newsworthy”. We can only hope that, in future, DD News  is solely and only guided by newsworthiness in its coverage of events.

Javadekar also cited private news channels’ coverage of the speech as evidence of its newsworthiness. Yes, but private news channels are guided by more than a benign interest in news value. They think about viewership and how to attract more viewership in order to attract more advertising, and that often dictates their choices. On Monday, for instance, DD News simply announced Pakistan’s intrusions on the Jammu and Kashmir border along with the number of casualties. NDTV 24×7, however, proclaimed, “Border on the boil” and Times Now raged, “Border betrayal”, “Pak cowards take aim at civilians”. Such language on DD News? Nah, never.

Satyamev Jayate is back on Star Plus with its usual stirring human stories that tug at the heartstrings and stimulate the tear ducts. Presenter and actor Aamir Khan was seen wiping his eyes on a few occasions during the first episode (Sunday).

The topic was the importance of sports  in building not just the body but the spirit too — and the spirit of bonding. Khan is

a man with a mission to highlight what is wrong with India; Modi is a man with a mission to highlight what’s dirty with India. No wonder, Khan was with Modi when he swept all at the launch of Swachh Bharat last Thursday.

By the way, have found the perfect actor to play Narendra Modi. If and when someone is inspired to re-create him on celluloid or the small screen, they need look no further than the highly accomplished actor Sai Ballal, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the prime minister. Watch him on Udaan Sapnon Ki (Colors) as Kamal Narayan Rajvanshi and judge for yourself.

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com