No guesses about today’s lead story: Aam Aadmi Party’s ‘sweeping’ victory in Delhi’s assembly elections Tuesday. Party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s photograph was plastered across front pages of leading papers — eclipsing even the redoubtable President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose visit to India later in February was announced. Note how the victory was celebrated with pun-filled headlines.
With sly reference to the recent shooting incidents in Delhi, The Times of India uses these as a metaphor for AAP’s victory. The lead, which is more a commentary piece than news report, says, “Winning a landslide in fiercely competitive arena…” Kejriwal “stunned the nation”. The report adds, “AAP’s tally was just five seats short of 2015’s and its vote share fell by less than a percentage point – and this was in the face of incumbency.” Its BJP story says the party will continue with the Citizenship Act in forthcoming election campaigns: “The BJP leadership believes the focus on CAA was the reason why its vote share improved by over 6%.”
The Indian Express considers different aspects of AAP’s big victory in Delhi under the banner — ‘Delhivered’. Four Delhi election-related reports dominate page 1. The lead dwells on the numbers behind AAP’s “landslide” victory which came despite “BJP’s goli maaro call, Shaheen Bagh current”. There’s an insightful, analytical piece on the vanquished party, noting the “diminishing political returns for BJP’s hard ideological agenda” in state elections.
Express also reports the Mehrauli incident in which an unknown assailant fired at “the vehicle of AAP Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav…leaving an accompanying party volunteer dead”. There’s no space for US President Donald Trump’s trip here but an exclusive on how days before the elections in Maharashtra last year, former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis issued an order “allotting work of digitisation of Mumbai police’s records to a private company owned by the son and wife of Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Barve”.
HT delights in a pun headline of its own while commenting in two lead pieces on Delhi’s CM. “Bharat Mata ki Jai, Inquilab Zindabad, Vande Mataram. Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, chanted these slogans on Tuesday afternoon,” reads the opening of the paper’s lead, adding that the first and the third are often heard at BJP rallies and the second at protests: “Kejriwal walked a fine line between the two…’’ The paper calls him an “angry disruptor” in another report, after he became a visible public figure. The paper also covers Okhla, constituency of Shaheen Bagh, where AAP’s Amanatullah Khan won with a “near-record victory margin”. BJP is given a short shrift with just a small, single column mention: “BJP’s campaign misread Capital’s mood’’.
Away from Delhi, it reports the life sentence awarded to 12 in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape cases.
The Hindu is unwavering in its straightforward style of headline and reportage. Its lead merely reports the poll result — AAP won a “massive mandate”, the papers notes. Another related, yet interesting, report indicates that all sitting ministers of the party, “except the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, also recorded a rise in their vote share compared with the previous election.” Trump’s visit on 24-25 February gets a look in. The report says that “Ahmedabad was chosen for the visit as Gujarat was home to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and played an ‘important role’ in Mahatma Gandhi’s life.”
Does this headline work? Yes, if you can pronounce it. The newspaper calls AAP’s victory a “crushing defeat of hate”. The lead opens with, “Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party scored a hat-trick on Tuesday, sweeping the Assembly election with 62 out of 70 seats…’’ The paper also covers Amanatullah Khan’s victory in Okhla, the constituency where Shaheen Bagh falls.
‘AAP-SOLUTE TORNADO’ is another tongue-twisting headline. The lead story is descriptive as it begins with “trademark muffler wrapped around” Arvind Kejriwal’s neck as he walks up the “spiral staircase” in party-office to deliver the victory speech. “Cheers from the thousands of workers and supporters below reached a pitch that could be heard at the rival BJP’s national headquarters located less than half a kilometre away”, the report describes.
Meanwhile, the US is looking to wrap up a deal which would decrease its trade deficit with India ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit; NIE notes in “Trade, def deals lined up as Trump comes calling on February 24”. A call for help from Indians aboard the ship that was quarantined after being hit by the coronavirus as NIE notes “Eyes moist, Tamil crew….wait with hope’’. There’s an interesting anchor story about female workers of a crematorium in Tiruchy who are “shattering patriarchy”.
Mumbai Mirror felt Kejriwal’s “current’’ far away on the west coast, but paid more attention to a Punjab and Maharashtra Co-Operative (PMC) Bank story on the bank extending “favours to auditors, such as sending them on all-expenses-paid vacations to Goa and other places.”
Thank you, The Tribune, for resisting the pun in the headline: ‘Landslide for AAP against goli maro politics’. The lead is a straight report that mostly focuses on the number of seats won. There’s a different take on Congress’ election failure as the paper notes that the grand-old party “looked happy with BJP’s loss”. Also read the reports on how BJP failed to sway Delhi’s Sikhs and the close battle in Patparganj which ended in a victory for Manish Sisodia. The paper doesn’t skip a mention of the verdict in the Muzaffarpur case and Trump’s India visit.
Economic Times chooses Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Lok Sabha statement and the Delhi polls as its leads. The FM cited seven “green shoots” for the economy, including higher foreign direct investment and GST collections, industrial growth in November and a buoyant stock market.
There’s an important report on India’s capital markets regulator and stock exchanges putting “on hold a proposal that would have required traders to pay the entire initial margins before executing even intraday trades”. Adani and Vedanta competing over “Lanco’s Amarkantak power plant located in the mine-rich Korba area in Chhattisgarh” is the other story to read.
Mint goes “tech-friendly” for its Delhi polls’ headline: ‘DELHI DOWNL ADS AAP 3.0’. On Arvind Kejriwal’s third-time win the paper notes: “Its first win could be written off as a fluke, the second perhaps a mere coincidence but a third win on the trot is every bit a pattern”. The FM’s list of the seven signs is here too. Read the report about how the US has raised hopes for a “breakthrough in trade” ahead of Trump’s visit. Mint also notes the CBI’s “clean chit to its former special director Rakesh Asthana” in a small item on page 1.
Business Standard spins Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement about Shaheen Bagh into a pointed headline: ‘Delhi presses the button, BJP feels the current’. Accompanying the lead story is the photo of `baby Arvind Kejriwal’, who has now become a social media sensation. There’s an important report about how ‘Remittances abroad could face double tax’ according to the new tax regime. Also, read the interesting anchor about pharmaceutical companies stepping up to reduce India’s dependence on Chinese drugs that might be curbed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.