It was a night when the political class was roasted across the board on prime time television. This, after Gajendra Singh’s suicide at the AAP rally in New Delhi resulted in a scramble by parties to score political points.
Aam Aadmi Party’s Ashutosh and Somnath Bharti came in for a bashing for their insensitive and sarcastic tweets during the day.
On Headlines Today, Rajdeep Sardesai was visibly upset with AAP leader Ashutosh, a former colleague.
Ashutosh to Rajdeep: I am sorry for the statement. I was disturbed and not in the right frame of mind.
Then, it was the Congress’ turn for a bashing.
Gaurav Gogoi: Rahul Gandhi was at the hospital.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Rahul Gandhi hasn’t even visited Amethi, his constituency!
Gaurav Gogoi: Rahul Gandhi didn’t use the platform to get into a political blame game.
On Times Now Arnab Goswami had AAP’s young spokesperson Raghav Chadha, with the screen screaming lines like, ‘From bizarre to ridiculous’, ‘Meek apology 3 hours later’, and ‘BJP not left far behind’.
True to his style, the Newshour anchor said, “I am not allowing interventions today because I don’t want to make it political, I don’t want a slanging match.”
But there wasn’t any need for interventions, spectacular or otherwise, as his guests, including JDU leader Pavan Varma, roundly condemned the incident.
‘Shameless, shocking, insensitive’ : NDTV
Uncharacteristically, NDTV 24/7’s banner headline read, ‘Shameless, shocking, insensitive’.
In a muted tone, anchor Vikram Chandra who had a panel of eight guests called the comments after Gajendra Singh’s suicide ‘shocking’.
Sachin Pilot, a former MP from Dausa, where Gajendra Singh hailed from said, “Long term solutions are there but my immediate worry is if we don’t stem the spate of suicides then it is going to really harm the farming community.”
Interestingly, it was the only channel to focus on the larger issue - that of farmer suicides and the farming crisis after the spate of unseasonal rain this year.
A line that the other news channels could have arguably taken.
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