As the final phase of Bihar elections will be held on Saturday, the political parties are pushing hard to influence voters in all ways it can to garner their votes to emerge victorious in the prestigious battle of Bihar.
With a lot of stakes invested in this Bihar election, especially for the opposition parties, they are leaving no opportunity to mobilise opinion on social media, at least. The opposition parties, especially the Congress and the RJD, have been a beneficiary of the massive media support, who are forefront at carrying out large scale positive media narratives ahead of the elections in Bihar.
In fact, the ‘liberal-secular’ media have been more than happy to provide their space for these ‘secular’ political parties to up their prospects in the ongoing Bihar polls, where they are battling against the ‘communal’ NDA. The media’s proxy campaigns in favour of the opposition parties got displayed once again on Saturday after ‘neutral’ India Today group did a full-fledged PR campaign on behalf of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav informing people about the ‘young’ RJD leader did an unexpected by getting himself a ‘haircut’.
The India Today group, carrying out its ‘Gold Standard of Journalism’, did an ‘investigative’ report to inform the voters of Bihar about how ‘young and fiery’ RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav surprised everybody by getting a hairdo ahead of the Bihar elections.
“Tejashwi called his regular hairdresser in the morning to 10, Circular Road residence. The Yadav residence was abuzz as jubilant supporters thronged the location, for the Jharkhand High Court was to hear party supremo Lalu Yadav’s bail plea,” read the India Today report.
Ironically, India Today’s ‘Gold Standard’ PR campaign for Tejashwi Yadav came just hours after India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai had indirectly questioned the country’s media for not asking ‘tough questions’ to politicians.
Rajdeep Sardesai questions Indian media, indirectly calls for boycott of the Modi government
Rajdeep Sardesai, fondly known as the ‘Michelangelo of Indian journalism’ for his creativity to create fake propaganda out of thin air, took to Twitter on Friday to express his tributes to American media outlets such as ABC, CBS and NBC, who blacked-out President Donald Trump’s address from the White House recently alleging that he had made an ‘unfounded accusation’ that the presidential election was being stolen from him.
These ‘neutral’ media outlets had denied President Trump a space to express his ‘Freedom of Speech’ by banning the telecast after he had raised doubts about the integrity of US elections by making sensational rigging allegations against Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden.
It is more of a common knowledge today that most of the media outlets have nurtured a hatred for Trump ever since he won the 2016 Presidential elections and were indirectly campaigning against Trump in his race against Joe Biden. Essentially, the powerful media in the US does not want to listen to Donald Trump’s opinion and would go to great lengths to ensure that people do not hear what he has to say. Not just the established media, even tech-giants like Twitter and Facebook were seen censoring Donald Trump.
Continuing, back in India, taking inspiration from the ‘left-liberal’ media ecosystem, Rajdeep Sardesai displayed his hypocrisy by saluting the ‘neutral’ American media despite them denying the US President him his right to express his opinion. Hailing the American media for boycotting an address by the US President on the pretext of him making ‘unfounded accusation’, Rajdeep Sardesai indirectly questioned the Indian media on continuing to provide space for country’s ruling dispensation.
Sardesai, known for his proximity to the Congress party, also subtly hinted to ‘liberal-secular’ media coterie of the country to follow their American counterparts by boycotting their official interactions with the Modi government. The free speech warrior and the epitome of liberal values – Rajdeep Sardesai perhaps wants Indian media to deny media space to Modi government to put out its views on the lines of a similar ‘boycott’ by the left-wing US media majors against Donald Trump administration.
Rajdeep Sardesai ‘saluting’ the American media outlets also essentially meant that he was taking a dig at country’s media, suggesting that they were all close to the current ruling establishment and would never boycott Prime Minister Modi. Rajdeep Sardesai’s attempt to point fingers at the country’s media was nothing but an indication that Indian media should boycott Modi government on the pretext that the Modi government was misleading the country.
Interestingly, Rajdeep was doing all of this while his own channel, India Today, was bending over backwards to please RJD by writing fluff pieces about Tejashvi Yadav’s haircut.
The left-liberal media – the propaganda arm of the opposition ecosystem
In reality, the left-liberal media ecosystem in the country, have been extremely unfair to the Modi government and ever since the BJP took the reins of the country in 2014, these ‘liberal-secular’ media have been overly critical of them. Six years down the line, the ‘liberal-secular’ media, which claims to be ‘neutral’ have done everything to put out wrong narratives to show Modi government in the poor light.
In fact, several times in the past, these ‘neutral’ media has gone to extent of concocting false evidence to fight their political and ideological battles against the supposedly non-left Modi government. Many left-wing media outlets, who share an ideological affinity towards the Congress party, have put out misleading facts to fight the Modi government.
Contrary to their act of holding truth to power, these so-called ‘neutral’ media of the country have not only remained blind to the blatant lies put out by the opposition parties, especially the Congress party, on a day-to-day basis but also shockingly provided a platform to them to peddle their lies. The ‘left-liberal’ have time-and-again joined hands with these opposition groups to stitch up false narratives against the ruling establishment to further their political parties.
It was evident not only during the Rafale controversy that erupted ahead of the 2019 elections but also even after BJP re-elected in the subsequent general elections. The false narratives peddled by these media outlets aftermath of the passage of Citizenship Amendment Act and during the Anti-Hindu Delhi riots explains how these media pushes blatant lies against the ruling establishment on the pretext of expressing their freedom of expression.
Not just that, Rahul Gandhi, who has been forefront at spreading lies almost every day, has been never questioned by the so-called neutral media of the country. The media has virtually has given unfettered access to the Gandhi-scion to spread his lies and propaganda without even holding him accountable for spreading such lies on an industrial scale.
Strangely, the ‘left-liberal’ media in the country have turned out to be the propaganda arm of political parties and are waging a disinformation war against the ruling government, who are effectively doing it under the garb of ‘freedom of the press’.
It is also extremely perplexing to know why would these free speech warriors, especially in the left want media to boycott someone in the first place. It is strange of these left-liberals, who often cry over others being intolerant to their views, have been displaying their extreme intolerance towards others by disallowing them an opportunity to put their views.
Ironically, the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, whose own media networks carry out PR articles to inform people about Tejaswi Yadav’s new ‘hairdo’ have no shame in calling for a boycott against the ruling government, which has successfully bypassed these traditional Congress-era news portals by interacting directly with the people of the country.