New Delhi: The Congress leadership drama took over prime time debates only for it to end in the most anti-climactic and predictable way possible. But it did give viewers a break from the nonstop coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Meanwhile, Mirror Now seemed to be the only channel bothered about job losses in the pandemic.
Examining the lockdown’s effect on employment — with 1.89 crore salaried jobs lost since April — the topic of Mirror Now‘s ‘The Urban Debate’ was “What can India do to create more jobs?”
Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director & CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), stated, “The way forward is to ensure that private enterprises grow and provide jobs. The government cannot be the provider of all jobs, but they can enable private sectors to provide jobs.”
He added, “What was troublesome in the month of July was that when all kinds of jobs are improving the jobs of the salaried class were worsening.”
JNU professor Santosh Mehrotra noted, “There is plenty of evidence to show that we should not be expecting the salaried jobs to be coming back for a fair bit of time.”
But Sumeet Singh, Group CMO, Infoedge India, was a bit more optimistic. “We are seeing the situation improve month on month. We saw June and July recover well over April and May.”
And now to the story that dominated prime time even though it ended up being a non-story — the Congress party and its leadership, after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met to discuss the controversial letter written by 23 party members to interim president Sonia Gandhi, demanding a complete party rehaul.
On CNN News 18, BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya said, “Rahul Gandhi lacks vision and he has no articulation about where he wants to take his own party. As far as Rahul Gandhi is concerned, he has been the president of the Congress party, and the party has performed miserably under him.”
Political analyst Sanjay Kumar noted, “I don’t know whether the BJP will be happy if the Gandhis are in power or not. BJP isn’t bothered, but it does give them political mileage.”
Defending the grand old party and the writers of the letter was Mani Shankar Aiyar, who said, “There is nobody wanting to undermine the party. Some suggestions have been made in the letter which are constructive in nature.”
Times Now couldn’t resist a “Sensational Exclusive Disclosure” about deceased Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s post mortem report having been allegedly sabotaged, before switching to a debate about the Congress party. It opened the debate with, “A seven-hour long Congress drama, as Gandhis remain bosses. No opportunity for ‘merit’. They’ll talk about ‘tyaag’ but won’t give up the top post. Is the dynasty above democracy?”
Suspended Congress leader Sanjay Jha weighed in, “We now have a declaration that in the next six months there will be an AICC session which will mean a solution at last to the drift that has been happening for a long time.”
Senior journalist Rasheed Kidwai wondered: “Whenever Congress elections take place and if Rahul Gandhi decides to contest, then I am very curious to know who will be contesting from the other side.”
BJP MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi commented: “Congress is by the Gandhis, for the Gandhis, of the Gandhis.”
On News 18 India, as Amish Devgan said Rahul Gandhi was “furious” at those 23 people who wrote the letter to Sonia Gandhi, senior journalist Ashok Wankhede defended the top Congress leadership. “These 23 politicians who wrote the letter are ‘chamber politicians’ who have no base on ground. They are mostly 70 years old and refuse to retire,” he said.
On India TV, Rajat Sharma explained what was discussed at the Congress Working Committee meeting about the renewal of the party leadership. He also spent some time talking about former finance minister Arun Jaitley on his first death anniversary and said, “Even though the shining sun has set before time, his light will continue showing us the path.”
Unfortunately this family now is destroying the grand old party, although earlier leaders from this family had helped the party to grow and do great things for the people…..???