By
Aditya Aamir
A
C-Voter-Republic TV ‘National Survey’, released a couple of days ago, gives the
Mahagathbandhan 50 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, if ‘elections are held
today.’ There is a caveat: There should be a MGB. Well, MGB did not come
gift-wrapped this Xmas, and is not likely to arrive as a New Year package, primarily
because of characters like MK Stalin, who proclaimed Congress president Rahul
Gandhi ‘PM face’ of the Opposition, aborting any chance Santa had of
gift-wrapping MGB for GE 2019.
BSP
commander-in-chief Mayawati, who like many of history’s greats goes by a single
name, is extremely sensitive to such authoritarian declarations. But then, what
more can be expected from a person named Stalin? Perchance, if big brother
Alagiri was DMK chief, he would have announced himself PM-2019! Jokes apart,
the C-Voter-RTV national survey predicts BJP+ will be ahead of opposition
numbers if there is no Mahagathbandhan, i.e., if ‘Bua’ Mayawati and ‘Bhatija’
Akhilesh Yadav do not make an Aligarh-strong combination lock, in which case
opposition parties will get only 38 “if elections are held today.”
Then,
there is Mamata Didi. The CV-RTV survey says the BJP will get ‘9 seats’ in West
Bengal. ‘Bollocks!’ erupted the Trinamool guy on the RTV panel. He should have
sought to know the difference between national survey and opinion poll?
‘National’ cannot be ‘opinion’ in any dictionary – Oxford, Cambridge, Webster
or Collins. Why, even Dictionary.com will baulk at drawing false equivalence.
Words, they have sanctity and cannot be gift-wrapped for TRP-hunters.
Mainstream
news television channels are all conclaves (and a summit) after the 5-state
election results. But people have got wise to such glitzy gatherings in 5-star
settings. It is all part of setting the ‘perception’. The visual media is
mostly about fables told with a ‘?’ The ‘?’ put there purposely because even
falsehoods have conscience! Opinion polls have sample-sizes. National surveys
skim the top. At least that is the feeling.
Mainstream
television media is about fleeting pictures. The ‘experts’ appearing on them
every weekday evening with party and personal agenda. RTV is about which expert
shouts the loudest. The same expert is soft-spoken gentleman on other screens,
the transformation jarring to eyes and ears. Down south, in Kerala, RTV goes by
the nickname ‘Sanghi Channel’. There are also ‘Congi’ and ‘Commie’ TV channels
in ‘God’s Own Country’ and together they make the perception battleground.
Among
the English language visual media, the ‘Sanghi Channel’ BARCs the most. Tamil
Nadu has Sun TV and Jaya TV with Kalaignar TV thrown in for good measure.
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have a slew of Telugu news channels. Both states
share a lingo and that is advantage television channels. Chandrababu Naidu and
Chandrashekhar Rao may hate each other’s guts but they are in the same channel!
The CV-RTV national survey says TRS will sweep Telangana but TDP will get
‘zero’ in Andhra Pradesh, where Jagan Reddy will top and Rahul’s Congress will
be ‘second’. The BJP will cipher!
So,
where all will BJP+ do well ‘if elections are held today’? Gujarat, Karnataka,
the northeast, Bihar (Jharkhand, the Congress tips the scale), Madhya Pradesh,
UP (if there is no MGB), Odisha and to an extent Maharashtra. Also in Himachal
Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where it could be uphill! But the thrust of the
CTV-RTV national survey is that the NDA will fall short of ‘272’. After every
set of state-wise numbers displayed, the acclaimed/declaimed RTV anchor
extracted a promise from each party with pre-poll alliance that it would not
ditch post-poll. If that is not ‘agenda’, then the bob-cut MGB lady is bobcat
PM!
Yes,
GE 2019 will be fought on the plank of who will be Prime Minister 2019? There
are four candidates. Narendra Modi is obvious contender and cannot be displaced
though an online effort to pitch the minister for roads and highways against
him went off the bend. MK Stalin wants Rahul Gandhi to be PM. Mayawati wants
‘Mayawati.’ Mamata Banerjee wants ‘Mamata Banerjee’. If Nitish Kumar “dreams to
be PM”, the “mousahar Maanji” is not his ‘sarathi.” And stomach-crunching
Yoga-guru Baba Ramdev says he ‘cannot tell who the next Prime Minister will
be.’
Speaking
in English, Ramdev said he’s not ‘supporting anybody for Prime Minister’,
stating that it is a ‘fighting situation’. To add to his ambiguity, BJP ally in
Uttar Pradesh Apna Dal cautioned the BJP to ‘respect allies’, especially after
its ‘recent losses’. Apna Dal wants more ‘Lok Sabha seats’. Uddhav Thackeray
says Modi is sleepyhead Kumbhakaran and Chandrababu Naidu said at a TV conclave
‘Modi is a negative character who ruined the economy’. Ramdev is right. There
is a ‘fighting situation’ to unseat Narendra Modi from the prime minister’s
chair and replacements gift-wrapped. (IPA
Service)
The post ‘Fighting Situation’ To Unseat Modi appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
