In the next few hours
voting for General Elections for 2014 will come to an end, and the TV channels
will take over bombarding exit poll verdicts for the next few days. TimesNow
has already announced its ‘HOLOgram’ version, and CNN-IBN has given a peek to its
exit polls stage design!
The Trending topic on
twitter since morning has been #Verdict2014 and #AlwaysWithCongress, do not know if its irony or a rude shock for the
pollster like that of 2004 & 2009. Every survey and every media house has
been talking about how INC will be decimated or how BJP or rather Modi will
come to power with a thumping majority.
The run up to the
elections and the entire campaign has been the MOST undignified and brutal,
leaders cutting across parties made personal remarks and several senior leaders
of other parties. In the barrage of speeches in the campaign trails and hashtag
wars on Twitter, Indian elections went on a High to it’s new Low. Abuse for
Abuse, Tweet for Tweet, Sound-bite for Sound-bite and 24 hours News channels mostly
picking up story trends from Twitter left voter exhausted.
Modi’s bunch of Lies,
Fake Gujarat development stories, Slip-of-tongue comments, Hate Gandhi family
speeches, Arrogance, PR, Event management was hardly matched by INC Leadership!
Rahul Gandhi’s more measured speech and focus of putting out the achievements
of UPA did not reach TV News channels as they were always on a look out for ONLY
Sound bites.
BJP’s cleverly crafted
campaign and event management left INC spinning, Maya, Lalu, Jaya, Mulayam,
Nitesh, Mamata were not even given air time on the National News channels. Many
voters from most parts of the country wondered if any of the parties
other than BJP, INC, AAP contested at all. While media savvy Kejriwal & AAP scored several brownie
points, even they were left with nothing more than few minutes of air time.
As a News addict, and
have been watching News channels for several years, one could see tremendous
shift in the way media houses functioned all through the election campaign.
Media was indeed influencing voters indirectly or more importantly demoralizing
the cadre of many parties, and made me wonder if elections were actually fought
in the TV studios or by News channels or by Political parties on ground.
But voters of India have decided what they want, who influenced them does not really matter, but who
reached out to them and how they saw the entire election campaign play out, did
they vote based on track record and manifesto or was it just vote for change
all that can ONLY be deliberated once the REAL elections #Verdict2014 is out.
Many like me are not entirely
happy, but there are no excuses once the votes are recorded. In the battle of
ideologies, in the ballet of Truth v/s Hype in the battle of We v/s I, in the
battle of Decency v/s Arrogance, in the battle of Democracy v/s Corporate, in the
battle of People v/s Media one will be the loser and Indian voters have decided
that.
I am no Psephologists but
General Elections 2014 is going to throw a lot of surprises as the EVM get unlocked, and will leave the Media in a spin yet again!