%u201CWHO is the real winner in Gujarat elections?
BJP or Modi?
Who is the real loser?
BJP or Advani or Rajnath?%u2019%u2019
This was how some popular media icons were seen dissecting the Gujarat verdict in chaste English even as the Congress was being decimated.
The media sidestepped the electorate%u2019s verdict, and began to give its own political version about who was the real winner or loser among the victors!
The normal rule where elections are fought between two contenders is that one of them is the prospective victor and the other, the prospective loser. That is, if one wins, the other, without doubt, is the loser. Yet, even after results are fully and finally out in Gujarat %u2014 thanks to the media debate %u2014 it is not clear to the media who has really won and also who has really lost. Electoral numbers disclose the simple truth that BJP has won decisively and Congress has failed miserably. Victory, it is said, has many claimants. But, in BJP, the refrain of whosoever spoke for the party was along these lines: the Team BJP has won in Gujarat, with Advani as captain and Rajnath as his deputy, and Modi as the man of the match.
RE:She can only win, never lose! - By S.Gurumurthy
by on Dec 27, 2007 12:59 PM Permalink
She inaugurates all projects and plans with the Prime Minister as the clapper boy. She is all over in government ads. When oil prices rise, the blame goes to poor PM. When it is cut, it is on her orders! When oil prices are not raised, minister says that it is on her directive. If the Congress party wins an election, it is due to her, but if it loses Hariprasads will bear the cross. In sum, she is exempt here from all scrutiny by the media. It is media%u2019s collective endeavour, not just isolated Congress effort, to keep her above blame, faultless. Hence the debate on who is the loser among the victors in Gujarat, so that the real loser, Sonia, is kept out of discussion.
RE:She can only win, never lose! - By S.Gurumurthy
by Demo-crazy on Dec 27, 2007 02:19 PM Permalink
Shailaja Bajpai on the TV anchors' performace, in Indian Express:
Star News: The men in black, anchor Gaurav and M.J. Akbar, were on their feet throughout (to applaud the winner?). Puppet heads of Modi, Madame and Others shook from side to side for no reason. Interesting. NDTV India sat on Gujarat Ki Gaddi like it has settled in for the night. Try as Vinod Dua might to bestir the sleeping giant, it did not awaken. Channel requires a piercing wake-up call. Aaj Tak: Deepak Chaurasia and a dholak competed for who could make more noise. Deepak won. The show was almost demure without its habitual headlines-in-a-hurry style. NDTV 24x7: The old firm of Prannoy Roy, Dorab Sopariwalla, Barkha Dutt and introducing Srinivasan Jain %u2014 not quite upto it. Like an old sweater, NDTV%u2019s holes are showing, though you remain comforted by the knowledge that Roy will explain everything to you, all in good time, eventually. Times Now: Nobody has bothered to tell Arnab Goswami he is speaking into a microphone. Rahul Srivastava was far calmer, Mahesh Rangarajan a sphinx who knew things were developing, but not what was happening. CNN-IBN: Rajdeep Sardesai almost as calm as Yogendra Yadav. Together, they ransacked the proceedings, the figures looking for telltale signs of why Modi won.
RE:She can only win, never lose! - By S.Gurumurthy
by on Dec 27, 2007 12:58 PM Permalink
This time in Gujarat the contest was more direct and most straight, with the NCP and BJP dissidents led by Keshubhai Patel openly aligning against Modi. On day one, Sonia turned the state election in Gujarat into a national affair. Also her by now famous %u2018%u2018Maut ka saudagar%u2019%u2019 (%u2018merchant of death%u2019) attack on Modi made him the central issue. For Modi, who set his competence against his adversaries%u2019 contempt for him, Sonia%u2019s attack on him proved the jackpot that positioned him against Sonia automatically.
The Gujarat election thus turned out to be a direct contest between Sonia and Modi. All pre-election reports said that the Congress was banking on the %u2018Sonia effect%u2019 to beat Modi. She addressed election rallies in as many as 13 constituencies, according to reports.
Her shadow was all over Gujarat. As results showing the decimation of the Congress started coming out, the omnipresent Sonia disappeared from the post-election theatre. Instead of tracing her out, the media began tracking and discussing who was the real winner %u2013 Modi or BJP %u2013 and who was the loser %u2013 BJP or Advani or Rajnath, or the Congress. But no one would dare add the name of the person on whose strength the Congress had almost proclaimed victory in Gujarat and lost %u2013 Sonia. In eight of the 13 constituencies in which she addressed huge rallies, the party lost. While the media reported the huge rallies of Sonia before the polls, it would not report that the party lost most of the seats where she held rallies.
RE:She can only win, never lose! - By S.Gurumurthy
by on Dec 27, 2007 12:57 PM Permalink
Modi himself has ridiculed those who credited the victory to him minus the party. But, on the Congress side, no one would own the defeat, proving the other rule that failure is an orphan. And some of them would not even see it as a defeat at all, for like M Karunanidhi they say, the Congress got more seats this time, the BJP less! With clues already given by the media, they began saying that it was Modi%u2019s victory, not the BJP%u2019s; in fact, the BJP was the loser!
They were thus searching for the loser from among the victors!
Yet, in a party which has not lost, other than Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, no one was available to the media. The Ashoka Road headquarters of the Congress was deserted on December 23, with most rooms locked.
Sonia Gandhi %u2013 who, along with thousands of persons invaded the very office some 10 years ago, had the sitting president of the party Sitaram Kesari locked in the toilet, took his chair and became the president %u2013 did not go to the party office at all on that day. Nor did the heir apparent to the throne, Rahul Gandhi, was seen anywhere around. Well, this is post-election. See the pre-poll picture. Sonia was the Maharathi of the Congress and, Modi, of BJP.
RE:She can only win, never lose! - By S.Gurumurthy
by on Dec 27, 2007 12:59 PM Permalink
Media%u2019s compassion made it easy for the party to distance her from the humiliating defeat. But now that the very %u2018merchant of death%u2019 whom she despised and asked the voters of Gujarat to throw out has won, she does owe an answer to her party and to the nation.
Yet, she keeps mum and instead employs her Alsatians to bark at others, hiding herself behind the iron gates of 10 Janpath protected by ZPlus security. While, in Delhi, her party keeps her name out, many Gujarat Congress leaders seem to have told the media, of course in anonymity, that her %u2018merchant of death%u2019 remark has cost the party some 30 seats.
Finally poor Hariprasad Solanki, Gujarat Congress party president, has become the %u2018bakra%u2019 %u2013 the sacrificial goat. He was forced to go to the party office in Delhi and own up the defeat as his(!) so that Sonia remains the victor. Imagine the party had won Gujarat. Would Hariprasad be allowed to share photo with the victor Sonia? After she made it emphatically known that she is the real key and Manmohan Singh is the duplicate one, this Congress sycophancy has become an accepted media discipline. Result: All good things happening for the party and in the government are unfailingly credited to her. Whether it is employment guarantee or rural development, it is all conceded as her agenda.
