From TimesNow, Republic TV to AajTak, NDTV, we track how India’s top news anchors are reporting on the 2018 assembly election results. Here are the live updates.

New Delhi: Good morning and welcome to ThePrint’s live blog on the results of the five Assembly elections – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram – which are expected to become a scene-setter to the mother of all elections that will take place in the summer of 2019.

We hope to look at about 15 channels, and how the highs and the lows, the euphoria and the deep dive will be manifest through our TV ‘sutradhars’. Here’s how the media, in intimate sync with politics, behaves as the results pour in.

Follow the day’s live updates here:

09:16am: Aaj Tak and TimesNow report Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh is trailing on his seat.

09:15am: Stock markets open with a steep fall. Sensex down 400+ points and Nifty by 100+

09:09am: Market analyst and former TV anchor Udayan Mukherjee says on CNBC TV18 that 2-1 in favour of BJP in heartland is not comforting as BJP won 62 of 65 Lok Sabha seats in these states in 2014 and that could be affected this time.

09:06am: On India Ahead, anchor Sanket Upadhyay asks, “Is it a little too late for the Mahagathbandhan?” Congress spokesperson Vinayak Dalmia says with a smile, “I will be back with you guys at 1 o’clock, we can discuss it then.”

09:02am: Not much noise on business channels yet. Talk is mixed between poll results and the latest developments at the RBI. Sensex is down by just 225 points and Nifty 125 points in pre-market opener.

08:55am: Why can’t Arnab Goswami and his political analysts sit down and shout at each other? In Rajasthan, the race is neck and neck. 56-42 for the Congress. In MP, Congress has taken an “interesting lead,” says Goswami.

08:54am: A shouting match is fully underway on Republic TV. “I want a minute,” shouts Arnab Goswami, banging his fist on the table. Hold your horses Arnab, says one guest, who stands up so he can make himself heard. Calm down, says Arnab. “We are seeing a monstrously interesting performance,” he adds. Not clear which state he’s referring to. Meanwhile, can someone give him a dictionary please?

08:42am: ABP has an ‘Akashvaani’. A male voice pretending to be God, or so we think, announces the latest trends. “Chhattisgarh main Congress aage!” At the moment, 20-18 are in favour of the Congress.

08:41am: News 9 reports that Congress has shifted its candidates to a resort for fear of poaching in Telangana. This is what we call ‘resorting to politics’!

08:33am: On ABP News, the trend stands thus — Congress surging ahead in Rajasthan, leading in 21 seats already within half an hour of the polls opening. Remember that in 2013, the Congress won only 21 seats, while BJP won 163 seats.

08:30am: Prannoy Roy is having fun with his reporters. He asks his reporter in Bhopal, Amitoj Singh, if he’d had experience in the kind of place he was reporting from — the old Bhopal jail. He introduces Uma Sudhir, the NDTV reporter in Telangana, as one of the finest journalists in India who had reported the elections meticulously. And then adds: “She still can’t tell us who’s winning.”

08:25am: India Today says 7-5 leads are in favour of Congress in Rajasthan.

08:18am: CNN-News 18 executive editor Bhupendra Chaubey asks: “Is history about to be defined?” Senior journalist Swapan Dasgupta demurs: “The BJP did mount a spirited last stand in Rajasthan and fell away somewhat in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.” Political commentator Sanjaya Baru says that if the BJP wins Rajasthan, it will be because of Modi.

08:17am: Guess what… Congress supporters have organised a ‘havan’ outside Rahul Gandhi’s home… clearly, unlike Shivraj Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, they probably couldn’t get in.

08:14am: On NDTV, the first trends are trickling in. In Rajasthan, Congress leads 5 out of 8 seats. Is this a trend? Be warned, says Prannoy Roy, these are postal ballots, but Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of ThePrint, points out that BJP does better on postal ballots because people in the armed forces, etc, are voting.

08:12am: Ticker tape on News9 says the Telangana Rashtra Samithi has a lead, though no results have been declared yet.

08:10am: On TimesNow, Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia says: “It will not just be a Congress government (in Madhya Pradesh), but the people’s government.” When the reporter asks him who will be the Congress chief minister, he says “let the results come in”.

08:08am: TimesNow managing editor Navika Kumar asks BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya, “There is no action at the BJP headquarters – since when is the BJP so reticent. Are you nervous?”

08:07am: Republic TV founder-editor Arnab Goswami says, “I want to look at this from a national perspective. National perspective. National perspective.” We got it, yes.

08:03am: Executive editor at NDTV Nidhi Razdan tweets from outside Congress headquarters in Delhi, says that compared to the BJP which is “very swanky this morning,” Congress HQ has kept it simple these elections with “no fancy platforms and screens.”

08:00am: Election Commission begins counting of votes. And the real action begins.

07:55am: On NDTV, the ticker-tape asks if Ajit Jogi, who broke away from the Congress in Chhattisgarh, will be the king-maker or will outgoing BJP chief minister Raman Singh be able to hold his own and win a record fourth term.

07:52am: On India Ahead, BJP spokesperson Raman Malik says that people sent him videos of them pushing their fingers towards the lotus on the EVM machine.

07:48am: On NDTV, channel founder-editor Prannoy Roy warns viewers that counting in Madhya Pradesh could be slow as the Congress could contest results and the Election Commission has to sign off after every round of counting. And yes, MP with 230 seats is very significant for the Hindi heartland going forward into the 2019 election.

07:45am: On Zee News, the discussion has settled on Hinduism. Maybe they need to visit a temple? Now we are being shown visuals of cows, not sure why.

07:37am: NDTV’s Prannoy Roy does what he does best – that is, looking at the swing factor. The psephologist says that the Congress needs a 5 per cent swing to win Madhya Pradesh.

07:35am: On TimesNow, anchor Navika Kumar says, “Madhya Pradesh mein kamal khilega… Kamal Ka phool ya Kamal Ka Nath, yeh patha nahin.” (The lotus will bloom in Madhya Pradesh… The lotus flower or Congress leader Kamal Nath, we don’t know)

07:33am: Counting is yet to begin but on TimesNow all hell has already broken loose with too many people talking at the same time and BJP spokesperson Dr Sambit Patra, to whom the question was addressed by Navika Kumar, is listening in stony silence.

07:29am: CPM spokesperson G.N. Nagaraj on News9 says in Telangana, the ruling TRS party is also a party of opportunism. They wanted to have an alliance with AIMIM for assembly elections, and with BJP for parliamentary elections.

07:15am: NDTV founder-editor Prannoy Roy notes that the women turnout was much higher in Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. The new female voter is aggressive and not afraid to come out, but Roy says it’s sad to still see such few women candidates for it doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground.

07:13am: On TimesNow, Navika Kumar says to Saba Naqvi: “You said very confidently after travelling in all these states that it is going to be 3-0 to Congress.”

07:11am: On NDTV, Prannoy Roy reminisces about freedom of speech and democracy, how India fought the Emergency, adds, ‘let democracy win’.

07:09am: Rahul Shiv Shankar on Times Now wonders if opportunism is going to be the game today. “The reason I am expressing some doubt (is) because this ‘opportunism’ (is) going to influence 2019,” he says.

07:06am: On India Today, author and former director of the Nehru Memorial Museum Mahesh Rangarajan says Madhya Pradesh is known to give a clear decision.

07:05am: TimesNow managing editor Navika Kumar counsels viewers to ‘keep faith with’ a channel that is ‘unbiased’ and not concerned with ‘speed’.

07:02am: On TimesNow, editor-in-chief Rahul Shiv Shankar says it’s a “make or break moment for Rahul Gandhi”.

07:00am: On the eve of counting, Aaj Tak in Hindi led with stories anticipating the poll results though many of the other channels were taken up with either the UK agreement to extradite absconding businessman Vijay Mallya or the abrupt resignation of RBI governor Urjit Patel.

07:00am: Welcome to ThePrint’s Live Blog on the 2018 assembly elections results.

 

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