New Delhi: It was Arvind Kejriwal’s day and it didn’t take long for TV news channels and their anchors to acknowledge it: from the time counting began at 8 am till well past 10 pm, they saluted Delhi’s chief minister for his ‘jhaadu’ sweeping the Delhi polls — a pun news channels employed all day — so much so that NDTV’sPrannoy Roy joked about fellow anchor Sreenivasan Jain’s use of it.
Back to “Baahubali” (Aaj Tak),“Bajrangi Bhaijaan”(ABP) “Chhota Modi” and “Arvind Modiwal” (Times Now).
From 9 am headlines told the story: “AAP comfortably ahead” (India Today, CNN News 18) became “AAP races ahead” (Mirror Now) as the numbers tilted decisively in the party’s favour and soon enough Republic TV announced that Delhi “rejects” polarisation. “Dilli mein tho Kejriwal,” said ABP.
By 11 am it was all over but for “academic interest”, said Rahul Shivshankar on Times Now. “Historic win”, observed Aaj Tak, “Spectacular victory” said NDTV 24×7 more generously, “Stupendous” added Times Nownot to be outdone. “Dawn of new politics,” remarked CNN News 18’s reporter as the sun set on the vote count.
Prime time discussions then turned to analysing BJP’s “embarrassing single digit” seat share and anchors directed some hard questions at the party.
On Times Now’s ‘Newshour’, anchor Navika Kumar said, “This stupendous victory is being seen as Delhi’s vote for development as opposed to the nationalism pitch repeatedly made by BJP”.
She asked Sudhanshu Trivedi, BJP spokesperson, “Is there a disconnect between the BJP and the people of the states?” Trivedi diverted the topic immediately: “I would like to ask with due humility that now the AAP should express regret on complaining about EVMs.”
In India Today’s debate, anchor Rajdeep Sardesai analysed Kejriwal’s victory speech: “He gave a short speech and didn’t take on Modi. This was a changed Kejriwal.” Sardesai asked the question of the day: “What went wrong with the BJP” to Sambit Patra, the party’s spokesperson. Patra was disconcertingly honest: “I think we need to introspect whether we took on local issues seriously or whether we would have done better if there was a face projected against Kejriwal.” No prizes for guessing.
Republic’s Arnab Goswami while offering his congratulations to AAP and dissecting its victory — “outsmarted Modi” —pronounced the death sentence on his favorite old bête noire: the Vadra-Gandhi Congress is over, “It is history’’, he declared. Nor could he resist returning to his favorite location in Delhi: “How long will Shaheen Bagh continue?”
Shoaib Jamie, Islamic scholar, was hungry for something else: “Aaj Shaheen Bagh mein biryani khaoonga”. (I will eat biryani in Shaheen Bagh). Jamie added: “Rinkiya ke papa ko Dilli ne tamacha maara” (Delhi has given a tight slap to Rinkiya ke papa—a reference to BJP’s Manoj Tiwari).
At ABP News, anchor Sumeet Awasthi compared Kejriwal to Salman Khan, anointing him ‘Delhi’s ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ — this was accompanied by an animated giant Hanuman statue that one can see from Delhi’s Karol Bagh metro station, Awasthi reminded viewers that Tuesday was Hanumanji’s day. He also mocked Congress for “breaking a record” of winning a grand total of zero seats in the past two assembly elections.
Aaj Tak’s Chitra Tripathi also joined in with the cinematic references, calling her segment ‘Arvind Baahubali’. “Delhi has announced it’s a decision — Jamme raho Arvind Kejriwal” — a spin on Kejriwal’s campaign song ‘Lage Raho Kejriwal’.
India TV helmed by anchor Saurav Sharma seemed to have borrowed from both Zee Newsand ABP News’headlines with this — “Delhi mein Arvind Kejriwal banne ‘Baahubali’, kya hai kaaran Shaheen Bagh ya ‘Bajrangbali’” (In Delhi, Kejriwal became ‘Baahubali’, is Shaheen Bagh the reason or ‘Bajrangbali’)
But they did bring drama with a face-off between political rivals — BJP’s Sambit Patra and AAP’s young winner Raghav Chaddha. Chaddha said Kejriwal had proved he was the “true deshbhakt”. Patra whipped out a metaphor — “Success has many fathers”. Right.
Zee News went with a cricket analogy on a day India lost 3-0 to New Zealand in the ODI series. Anchor Sudhir Chaudhary presented an analysis of AAP’s “big win in Delhi Premier League”. Almost gritting his teeth, Chaudhary said that by winning 62 out of 70 seats, the party had created a new kind of history. For BJP, issues of Shaheen Bagh, Ram Mandir, Ayodhya, Article 370 didn’t seem to work.
His comment that “promises of free electricity, free water, and free bus rides” did the trick for the AAP, was reminiscent of his Sunday rant against the “lazy” Delhi voters and their love for freebies. He said it was the third win for “the muffler man” and then told off the BJP for getting “caught out” on the Shaheen Bagh “boundary”, for not appointing a Delhi captain, and indulging in too much sledging. Basically, BJP had its stumps knocked out.
With inputs from Shailaja Bajpai