New Delhi: Prime time debates Monday night saw India Today debate the Congress’ role as an opposition party and later paid tribute to actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who passed away Sunday, with actors Sharmila Tagore and Aparna Sen.
Meanwhile, CNN News18 discussed Nitish Kumar’s fourth term as the Chief Minister of Bihar and Rubika Liyaquat on ABP News had a simple suggestion for the RJD — why boycott the oath-taking ceremony when you can go to the courts against “rigged elections” and “EVM issues”?
On NDTV 24×7, anchor Sreenivasan Jain discussed Supreme Court’s bail order for Republic TV’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami. Goswami was granted bail by the SC in a 2018 case of alleged suicide abetment on 11 November.
The channel ran an interesting ticker on the show that read: “Bail for pro-govt anchor, jail for dissenters?”
Senior advocate at the Madras High Court Sriram Panchu said he had no issue with Goswami’s bail as “once the courts come to the decision that there is no case made out on the facts alleged, he should be out.”
However, according to Panchu, “the breakneck speed” at which Goswami’s case was heard was disturbing.
He noted that most “vital cases of public importance”, such as determining the constitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the scrapping of Article 370, did not get this treatment.
Jain noted, “I myself have said the way the Maharashtra government has gone after him really does smack of political vendetta. The point is the whole question of the selective nature of these cases being dealt with. When it comes to someone like him, who is an open supporter of this (Modi) government, it is immediate hearing, immediate bail. And all these other instances happen to be critics of the government.”
To which, BJP leader Lalitha Kumaramangalam replied, “The judiciary picks and chooses cases that it wants to address immediately, this has been going on for some time now.”
After senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal questioned the party leadership on Bihar polls and said that people in the country don’t see it as an “effective alternative”, Rajdeep Sardesai, on India Today, asked if Congress was still the BJP’s primary challenger.
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said, “Congress should have been the prime opponent but I think they left the space, which they should have been occupying as the principal opposition party.”
Trivedi added that from former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s majority in Parliament, with over 400 seats, it was “beyond our imagination to think the Congress would get just a little over 50 seats”.
He also asked Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera what the party’s ideology was since it allied with the CPI-ML in Bihar and then the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
“I don’t think I need to define centrism for my friend Sudhanshu Trivediji who is a very erudite fellow.” replied Khera. He did go on to define centrism later, as the path between extreme Right and extreme Left.
Khera added that the Congress has been re-inventing itself every 10-15 years.
But Sardesai cut him short and said the reality is that Congress has been on the decline since the late 1980s, to which Khera clapped back, “Reality is that you don’t let me complete my sentences.”
Anchor Rubika Liyaquat on ABP News focused on the after-effects of the Bihar elections on the Congress and its ally RJD.
“Shivanand Tiwari said Rahul Gandhi was enjoying a holiday in Shimla during Bihar polls, Kapil Sibal has said that it has become fate to get defeated one election after another. Who’s version should we listen to? On one end, you allege rigged elections and on the other hand you say that the leaders didn’t pay attention,” Liyaquat said.
“If you believe that the elections were rigged, then why don’t you ask the MLAs to resign, instead of boycotting the oath-taking ceremony?,” the anchor asked RJD’s Sarika Paswan.
“The people of Bihar voted for change but the results did not reflect that,” Paswan said.
“When you win it’s all good. There is no EVM rigging but when it’s them, you say all these? Why don’t you go to courts instead of boycotting,” Liyaquat added.
On Republic Bharat, Arnab Goswami asked, “Why shouldn’t the entire country boycott Congress?”. This was in the context of the Congress announcing an alliance with the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) — a group of seven parties in Jammu and Kashmir — for the upcoming District Development Council (DDC) polls.
The channel ran the hashtag ‘#IndiaVsGupkarGang’ and the entire discussion was fairly confusing with every panelist blaming a different country for the Gupkar alliance.
“(National Conference leader) Farooq Abdullah has lost trust in Pakistan, now it’s China. There are Uyghurs Muslims there,” said Avnijesh Awasthi, political analyst.
“India is no place for people like this. They should go to Xi Jinping,” he added.
Sushil Pandit, an activist from J&K, said that the Election Commission should take away the voting rights of “traitors” and their citizenship should be abolished.
“These people take instructions from Rawalpindi in Pakistan,” Pandit added.
The judicial system has never been exactly transparent in India. The judicial system has been for the powerful and the ruling class, not just in India.