New Delhi: Prime time Thursday saw Times Now target Congress leader Udit Raj’s tweet against government spending on religious events like the Kumbh Mela, NewsX debate the war of words between the JD(S) and Congress over the upcoming bypolls in Karnataka, and CNN-News18 discuss Delhi’s air pollution.
On Times Now, anchor Navika Kumar pulled up the Congress’s Udit Raj over a tweet in which he called for the separation of religion and state. “The UP government spent Rs 4,200 crore in organising the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and that too was wrong,” he had said.
Kumar described Raj’s comments as ridiculous and said, “What’s stunning is the studied silence of the Gandhis and the entire top brass of the Congress… They go temple hopping when the elections are around and then turn select secularists with their appeasement spree.”
BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra chimed in: “My sources tell that Udit Raj may be elected as the President of the Congress party because after Rahul Gandhi’s exit, they feel that Udit Raj is quite competent enough, which I feel is because he has been in the BJP.”
NewsX‘s Megha Sharma looked at the “Karnataka nataka” over the bypoll seats in Bengaluru and Tumkur, the strongholds of the Congress and JD(S).
Aishwarya Mahadeva, Congress, weighed in on the reported tension between the JD (S) leader HD Kumaraswamy and D K Shivakumar, Congress. “… What has happened now is that Karnataka has been drawn along caste lines as well and the JD (S) would obviously look at their convenience, whether it is with us or the BJP, and they’re best left to their own devices,” she declared.
The BJP’s Malavika Avinash agreed and said, “In fact what has happened now, is the likelihood of the BJP winning is much greater than the Congress.”
CNN-News18 focused on the war of words between the Delhi government and the central government after Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar said that stubble burning contributes only four per cent to the pollution. Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal retorted by saying that Javadekar is in denial.
“Only four per cent from stubble burning… that seems a bit off because it’s only in the last two weeks that the air quality is bad,” anchor Zakaa Jacob asked RP Singh, BJP.
Singh replied: “We are misquoting the Minister. He said four per cent is annual average. It is four to 40 per cent during the stubble burning season… I’m not blaming the local government either, but their priorities may be different.”
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Atishi Marlena stressed that “pollution isn’t a phenomenon of Delhi-NCR. It is a phenomenon of all of North India and the Gangetic Plain… Kanpur, Gurgaon and Noida had a higher AQI than Delhi and these don’t come under Arvind Kejriwal or Aam Aadmi Party.”
Meanwhile, NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar spoke about the flash floods that hit Hyderabad earlier this week and resulted in the death of 50 people. Kumar went on to say that the issue had brought the city to its knees.
He reminded viewers that only last month the Telangana government had declared it would make Hyderabad “hi-fi”. He quipped, “These days connecting a city with Wi-Fi makes it hi-fi.”
On Zee News, Sudhir Chaudhary adopted a holier-than-thou attitude as he highlighted the TRP scandal. He said, “Media is regarded as the mirror to society, but today there is a need to clean this very mirror.”
He urged viewers to listen to the common people who shared their expectations from the media. In this attempt to “democratise” news, the channel then played clips of regular Indians who expressed what they want from the news. Some said they would like to see science- and research-based news, others said there is an undue focus on one story night after night, and pretty much all agreed that channels should stay away from masala news.
