Once upon a time, AAP and its supremo Arvind Kejriwal used to be a big fan of media and surveys, which used to show AAP gaining popular support. The survey findings were not unexpected as the party had emerged from a popular movement aided by the mainstream media and thus people wished to give it a chance. AAP used to put findings of such surveys on their campaign posters, especially during the Delhi assembly polls.
The party made an impressive debut in 2013 Delhi assembly elections though Kejriwal resigned after just 49 days in power. Then came the 2014 general elections, where the party performed impressively in Punjab winning 4 Lok Sabha seats. And then in 2015, it swept the Delhi assembly elections. Many surveys indicated that AAP could repeat its Delhi performance in Punjab assembly elections too.
Two years have passed since then. The party has seen internal feud that led to acrimonious exit of founder member Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, who now accuse the party of being as good as any other political party. Governance in Delhi is marred with controversies. And the party has been accused of hiding its source of funding. In Punjab too, the party is embroiled in various controversies.
As a result, recent surveys have indicated that AAP many not sweep the elections as was being predicted earlier. Some surveys have even predicted that it could actually end up at the third position.
This made Arvind Kejriwal make a U-turn and he started asking people to not trust pre-poll surveys by the media. This article (click here) explains the U-turn of Kejriwal over the issue.
Now Kejriwal has gone a step ahead and accused a news channel of taking bribes for showing AAP on the third spot in a pre-poll survey. Kejriwal made this accusation on Sunday against TV channel News24:
क्या ये सर्वे बिना पैसे खाए हो सकता है? ये तो बेशर्मी की हद है। अनुराधा प्रसाद जी, कितने पैसे मिले आपको, देश जानना चाहता है?(1/2) pic.twitter.com/zYWJeD6T9J
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 29, 2017
Not just he accused the channel’s owner of taking bribes, he called some journalists (without taking names) “dalaal” (pimps):
पत्रकार की खाल में कुछ दलाल घूम रहे हैं। समय आ गया है अब इनका नाम लेकर जनता में इनकी पोल खोलने का(2/2) pic.twitter.com/gZfbEWGkCY
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 29, 2017
This is not the first time Kejriwal has referred to journalists as pimps. Earlier he had identified former Indian Express Editor Shekhar Gupta as a pimp.
On expected lines, Kejriwal was not attacked by the journalistic fraternity as he continues to enjoy considerable support among them. Earlier Kejriwal had shared a picture on Twitter that showed a newspaper page being designed. This suggested that he had loyal supporters working in newspapers who leak to him the news even before it’s published.
Nonetheless, after Kejriwal attacked media and declared the unfavourable pre-poll survey “paid”, his team has now gone ahead and started circulating images of surveys that show AAP winning around 100 seats in Punjab. Some of these are the old surveys, while others are fake.
One such fake survey was shared by the IT head of the Aam Aadmi Party Ankit Lal, which claimed that Today’s Chanakya – the research group that had correctly predicted 2014 general elections and 2015 Delhi assembly election results – had predicted 100 seats for the party in Punjab elections:
पंजाब में आम आदमी पार्टी की 100 सीटें आ रही हैं।
इस तूफ़ान में कांग्रेस और अकाली उड़ जाएंगे। pic.twitter.com/vQuH5FIn2E
— Ankit Lal (@AnkitLal) January 30, 2017
This was a clever attempt to use the credibility of Today’s Chanakya to push party propaganda. However, this lie by Ankit Lal – who has a rich record of spreading lies and misinformation – was called out by Today’s Chanakya itself that clarified that they had not undertaken any pre-poll survey.
We have not done, it’s fake in our name. https://t.co/BYXISoFUYW
— Today’s Chanakya (@TodaysChanakya) January 31, 2017
And as it always happens, the IT head of the party had not bothered to remove the tweet or the image. Why let facts get in the way of good propaganda, eh?
