Primetime Television Debates Congress’ Political Vendetta Cry

Congress’ “political vendetta” argument makes it to the prime time slot. Here’s how Arnab and Barkha dealt with it.

Screenshot of the debate on Times Now. 

For two weeks both Houses of Parliament managed to stay calm. Yes, there were snubs and bouts of aggression in the Lok Sabha but the Opposition somehow exercised restraint, a departure from its disruptive tendencies that we saw in the monsoon session.

But all hell broke loose on Tuesday after the Delhi High Court made its observations in the National Herald case.

That uproar naturally transitioned into an obvious “primetime” debate. And after the screaming match between Arun Jaitley and the Congress in Parliament, Times Now’s Arnab Goswami was no breath of fresh air.

He started the debate specifically mentioning that the debate was not about the merits of the case but the “political vendetta” argument.

While Congress’ Jayveer Shergill defended the charges while the BJP’s Rajagopalan was ready with a frontal attack.

The two mostly spoke simultaneously leaving little scope for the viewer to understand the arguments they made, much like the scene in Parliament earlier in the day.

Arnab Goswami interjected a couple of times. He brought up the case of former minister Nihalchand and said,

When Nihalchand was accused of rape, Rahul Gandhi demanded a resignation. But now that Rahul and Sonia are accused, this becomes political vendetta? Mr Shergill, explain this to the viewers of The NewsHour who are watching this right now.

After 20 minutes of this back and forth, Arnab “opened the debate” to the panel.

Enter Sambit Patra.

The BJP’s star spokesperson did not get too many opportunities to attack the Congress for the simple reason that Jayveer Shergill kept interrupting him despite Goswami’s warnings.

NDTV Makes up for its Colleagues

Screenshot of the debate from NDTV. 

On NDTV, Barkha Dutt moderated a calmer panel. She had BJP’s Nalin Kohli, Congress’ Sachin Pilot and senior journalist Kumar Ketkar to debate with.

The topic of discussion was “political vendetta” but the panel focussed on whether the comment could also be perceived as a statement on the judiciary.

Nalin Kohli attacked the Congress head-on when asked if the government was manipulating the CBI to hound the Congress. He replied,

Show me a single order of the Supreme Court saying the CBI is not functioning well. Is there any allegation of corruption in the government? No. Did Mr Chidambaram not say that “law will take its own course”. But when the law does, they cry political vendetta.

Sachin Pilot countered this argument by saying the BJP was merely using this case an excuse to attack the Congress because, “the BJP knows that its political sheen is wearing off. It is using Subramanian Swamy to make a political point”.

However, he refused to comment on the merits of the allegations saying the party will battle it out in court.

Meanwhile, Pinak Mishra, Ashok Malik and Kumar Ketkar discussed the history of the relations between Swamy and the Gandhis. They concluded that it was unlikely that the BJP was using Swamy to attack the Congress.

Pilot concluded that this would not be a dent in the image of the Gandhis and that the “truth will prevail”.