India Today Rajdeep Sardesai stood exposed in the latest episode of Democratic Newsroom when he couldn’t hide his frustration over the widespread belief around the country that the BJP will return to power with an even greater mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Blaming newsrooms for trumpeting ‘Ab ki baar, 400 paar’, a political campaign that BJP and its supporters have been echoing, which denotes that the saffron party and its allies might rack up over 400 Lok Sabha seats this time, Rajdeep fulminated that they might as well change the ‘Democratic Newsroom’ to ‘Single-party newsroom’ for drum-beating about the likely victory of the BJP in the upcoming polls.
“I am amazed and amused by the drumbeat that we have. It is almost like you have decided, why refer to it as ‘Democratic Newsroom’? Why not call it ‘Single-party Newsroom?” Rajdeep complains.
However, Sardesai’s colleague, Rahul Kanwal, swiftly rebutted him, exposing the ‘veteran’ journalist for his prejudice and absurd reasoning to blame the newsrooms and drumbeats of ‘Ab ki baar, 400 paar’.
“It is absolutely ridiculous for Rajdeep to blame television news channels for this drumbeat. We were at a lunch posted by a Congress leader this morning. Every Congress leader I spoke to was discussing the inevitability of the BJP’s victory and their family members were cursing the Congress leadership, and are totally non-optimistic about their fortunes,” Kanwal said.
Rahul Kanwal never misses a chance to expose Rajdeep. 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/HCc5IQHdYY
— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) February 7, 2024
“To call it a drumbeat is a wrong way of describing what’s at play. In sephology, it is called the winning bandwagon effect. Of course, this will play out till May. If everyone starts to believe that the BJP is coming back to power, it is possible that the BJP, Modi, Shah, or anybody could have willed the kind of performance they will end up with. What if the opponents already decide they have no hope in hell of winning? Look at the way the I.N.D.I. alliance is disintegrating, Rajdeep, for you to blame news channels is completely irresponsible and unacceptable,” Kanwal further elucidates.
Rajdeep’s anguish stems from the fact that the INDI alliance is slowly drifting apart and the opposition failing to offer the population a fresh narrative aimed at swaying people away from the BJP and towards the opposition parties. At the moment, the INDI alliance is on the verge of collapse, with several key members, including TMC, AAP, and DMK, snubbing the Congress party over persisting with the alliance.
Earlier on Monday, PM Modi asserted that the BJP-led NDA alliance will bag over 400 Lok Sabha seats in the elections and he will return as the Prime Minister for the third time. The Prime Minister also added that the BJP will win around 370 seats on its own and there will be momentous decisions taken in his third term.
