Prime Time

Sunday is a day of rest for Hindi news channels, who eschew debates at prime time, preferring interviews, like Aaj Tak’s Seedhi Baat with Ramdev.

English news channels always have enough ammunition for a good fight. They took aim at the Congress, Sabarimala politics, and the CBI investigation into an SP-era scam in UP, launched amid talks of a ‘bua-bhatija’ alliance with the BSP (Times Now).

Cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who retired recently, was interviewed by Arnab Goswami (Republic TV) and then Navika Kumar (Times Now). Goswami said Gambhir would do well in politics, while Kumar reminded him that he had already campaigned previously – for Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Congress lies and so do others

‘#Jhoot Politics’: The 9 pm Rebublic TV debate saw panelist Sameer Kaul allege that anchor Arnab Goswami “lies”. Off camera, Goswami denied it: “You may lie, I don’t.”

Kaul suggested that “politicians and some media” decided to play the game of “fake news” and, therefore, the topic for discussion – a reference to Rahul Gandhi’s recent statements on Rafale, the PM and other issues — was part of the “new normal fake news” environment.

Goswami and Kaul were not the only ones to get personal: On CNN News 18’s Battle of 2019, the spokespersons of the SP and the BJP got very personal.

Asked to speak on the CBI investigation into Samajawadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s alleged involvement in a sand mining scam, BJP’s Charu Pragya said to SP’s Juhie Singh, “(Are you) done screaming…? You are making a fool of yourself…”

Singh repeatedly interrupted her: “Thank you for the certificate,” she yelled back. “What is going on here?” asked the hapless anchor. What indeed — or wasn’t it business as usual at prime time?

Pragya attempted to explain that the CBI action was in keeping with the Allahabad High Court’s directive but Juhie wasn’t listening.

Sabarimala and politics

Times Now joined the fun while Mirror Now chose to revisit Sabarimala.

It had Congress Kerala MP Shashi Tharoor explain why a consummate liberal in public life like himself had been critical of women’s entry into Sabarimala: The CPI(M) wants to “polarise’votes” by supporting women’s entry, playing “petty politics” for votes, he argued.

Sabarimala was centre-stage on NDTV 24×7’s We The People and Left Right and Centre. The former debated the need for “purification” of the premises following the entry of women last week.

Anchor Gargi Rawat said this suggested women were “untouchable”. BJP’s Karnataka state spokesperson Vaman Acharya contended that this focus was incorrect: It should be on the Kerala government and the Supreme Court’s “intervention” in an “800-year-old” tradition.

On CNN News 18’s Virtuosity, host and senior journalist Vir Sanghvi asked his panelists to predict the outcome of the 2019 polls: CSDS’s Sanjay Kumar and journalist-academic Mihir Sharma voted for Modi as the next PM, with a fall of up to 50 seats in its 2014 tally. Washington Post’s Nihan Masih said the field was “open… as of now”. To this, Sanghvi observed that, depending on how the poll results turn out, they might feel like “complete idiots” for their predictions.

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