Opinion Tele scope: The Delhi debate
Bedi and Kejriwal have still to come face to face, but it’s a face-off
Once Bedi joined the BJP and had been elevated to its chief ministerial candidate on Monday night, Kejriwal challenged her to a debate.
So it’s AK-47 versus KB’s 66mm pistol. Even before Arvind Kejriwal (47 years old this year) and Kiran Bedi (66) filed their nomination papers for the Delhi assembly elections amid much fanfare and fan-following, on Wednesday, they had come out with guns blazing. Once Bedi joined the BJP and had been elevated to its chief ministerial candidate on Monday night, Kejriwal challenged her to a debate. She immediately shot back: He debates, I deliver.
The news channels were delighted: now they could debate the debate — the non-existent one. Poor Congress leader Ajay Maken was willing to debate but after a sound byte, he was politely brushed aside by the news channels. For them, this is a duel unto death between BJP’s Revolver Rani and AAP’s Muffler Man — Maken was simply obstructing the line of fire.
Bedi may or may not come face to face with Kejriwal, but she is facing a volley of (uncomfortable) questions from TV anchors she knows very well, having been a frequent guest on TV discussions. The first female officer of the IPS is a highly sought after TV personality. In 2009, she appeared as judge and jury on the reality legal show Aap ki Kachehri (Star Plus). She was a stern, upright school mistress, teaching errant people what was good for them. Then Anna Hazare pulled her onto the political stage of 2011 and since then, she’s a TV news favourite, almost as ubiquitous as Suhel Seth and invited to speak on almost every subject, not just crime.
On Monday, she was up against NDTV’s Barkha Dutt and on Tuesday, Arnab Goswami (Times Now) — and herself. No longer could she shoot straight from the hip, tell it like she saw it; now she was a politician who had to tell it like the BJP saw it. Ergo, she had to be diplomatic. Asked by Dutt about her “BJP has the world’s most beautiful face” remark, she replied rather lamely that for her beauty meant “competent” — and was there any doubt that the PM was competent?
Goswami reminded her of previous comments she’d made that were at variance with her present claims. She claimed she had been “inspired” to change, to evolve by a catalogue of Modi’s good deeds — and she waved the catalogue of press clippings she had maintained in the camera’s face. “Cannot people evolve? Is it a crime?” demanded the retired police officer.
Goswami accused her of being “diplomatic”, unlike herself. “I learnt from you,” said she. “I am never diplomatic,” said he. Thereupon, Bedi was inspired to launch into a confused explanation on the art of diplomacy.
Cornered by Goswami quoting her old quotes, she looked around for help, and found it in cherries. “You are cherry-picking,” she admonished him. “I don’t cherry-pick,” he retorted and immediately began cherry-picking. Whereupon, Bedi said she had four other interviews, removed the microphone and walked out on Goswami. Did Modi inspire this move too?
Remember, he too had got up and left a TV interview with Karan Thapar once upon a time.
Emotions ran high elsewhere on Tuesday. On ABP, Ashish Khetan (AAP) and Mukesh Sharma (Congress) ignored the anchor’s pleas of “shaant ho jaiye” and yelled in unison. On Aaj Tak, Ashutosh (AAP) and the anchor yelled at each other. On Zee Business, anchor Amish Devgan was silenced by Kamal Mitra Chenoy (AAP), while Shazia Ilmi (BJP) spilled the dirt on her old friend, the AAP (IBN-7). Increasingly, anchors are participants rather than moderators on their shows — now guests shout back at them. Wonder who taught all of them to be such loudspeakers?
For DD News, it’s a “New Year, New Look”. Well, partly. The 8 pm one-hour News Night is a good mix of headline news with accompanying visuals and a topical debate. But the 7.30 pm news bulletin was like the bad old DD News. On Monday night, listened to the news reader read out the news of President Pranab Mukherjee’s comments on the functioning of Parliament, US President Barack Obama’s warning to Pakistan on terrorism, the appointment of a new Censor Board and the World Toilet Summit, with few visual or audio clips. Poor show.
DD News appears to be obsessed with Pakistan’s current petroleum problems — they featured on the news on Sunday and Monday, when there was no other world news item.
shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com
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