Season of report cards and opinion polls

BY NUPUR BASU| IN Media Practice | 24/03/2014

At this stage, in the run up to the elections, focus is both on political performance and the media's take on it. And some ground level glimpses are emerging.

A CNN-IBN and Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) survey released on March 18, which interviewed voters from 21 states in India and asked them about 30 governance related issues, came out with a rather dismal report card of India's parliamentarians. Only 17 per cent of the sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) in the outgoing Lok Sabha scored over 6.67 out of 10.

The voters were asked to mark their MPs out of ten points for the following categories: status of water, electricity, employment generation, better hospitals, schools, roads, garbage, pavements, corruption, safety of women and other burning issues.

As many as two-third of the MPs scored below average. The MP who emerged with flying colours in this perception battle was Congress MP Sachin Pilot, scoring 8 out of 10 in Ajmer. Congress President Sonia Gandhi got 6.33 from Rae Bareilly, while Rahul Gandhi got just 5.58 from Amethi. Leader of the Opposition and BJP MP Sushma Swaraj got a score as low as 3.52 from her voters in Vidisha, while BJP President Rajnath Singh got 4.53. Congress MP Kamal Nath got a pathetic score of 3.59 from Chindwara.

Prof Trilochan Sastry of the ADR had this to say in response to the MPs' report card: "It is high time that the people woke up to the fact that the voters are extremely unhappy with their elected representatives."

When Jai Panda of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) tried to say that as an MP he cannot instruct local bodies to do the road works and other development works, Rajdeep Sardesai asked: "Are you saying you want to be judged only by your performance in Parliament?" Panda then conceded - "No MP can say I am not responsible".

Sudhanshu Mittal of the BJP was irked by Sachin Pilot's high score of 8 and Sushma Swaraj's low of 3.52 and quoted election results to riddle holes in the survey conducted by CNN-IBN and the ADR. Earlier Jai Panda had also said, “I think the fact that Sushma Swaraj is scoring so poorly shows the survey is poor."

Why haven't you put in their performance in Parliament or how they speak in television studios as a criterion, asked Rajdeep of Prof Sastry. He replied: “People are not interested in how their MPs speak in Parliament, but what they do on the ground!”

“Why then are MPs changing their constituency every five years?" Rajdeep asked the panelists this time. Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, President, Lok Satta commented: "In a larger sense, the survey shows that Indian voters are disgusted with their MPs."

Who then will make them accountable, questioned Rajdeep and the Lok Satta leader replied: "It is the responsibility of the MPs and MLAs who have failed and have hopelessly underperformed!" People have to choose between “tweedle dum and tweedle dee" commented Rajdeep on the forthcoming polls.

Prof Sastry stressed that across the board people wanted jobs, prompting Rajdeep to say: "So it is no longer about roti, kapda aur makaan but about rozgaar!"

Earlier an opinion poll by NDTV and Hansa Research, while giving the BJP a clear lead in this election over others, had tried to work out the electoral mathematics about how the Modi-led NDA could cross 272.

Interesting data and analyses also emerged during the two-day programme titled the "The Final Word" anchored by Prannoy Roy. While Shekhar Gupta, Editor in Chief of the Indian Express said that "there was going to be a tectonic shift in Indian politics" in the 2014 elections, K Nageshwar from Hyderabad remarked: "Politics is not about arithmetic… politics is about chemistry".

N Ram of the Hindu stressed that "BJP and Modi will have a 'last mile' problem and that he was afraid of the long term damage that the BJP could do to India's secular fabric. BJP cannot change its spots and they cannot simply get away from Hindutva as the cadres will not allow it."

Shekhar Gupta's stand was: "No doubt institutions will be tested like the media, judiciary and corporate…but I feel that the new partners will reign in the BJP on its Hindutva ideology". Dorab Sopariwala said: "There is no ideology left in any of the parties anymore". Sopariwala added that television is playing a very important role in the present elections.

There were discussions about Narendra Modi wanting to contest from two or three seats and Siddharth Vardarajan, former editor of the Hindu, dubbed it as totally unnecessary and nonsensical and totally at the tax payers' expense. Shekhar Gupta supported that and hailed what Kejriwal had done in the Delhi contest. Gupta said: "He stood from one seat and against the then Chief Minister Sheila Dixit - that is the sign of a true leader!"

Interestingly, Sudhendra Kulkarni talked about the ascendency of the "three leading ladies- Jayalalitha, Mamata and Mayawati" and said that they could very well "prop up the federal front". Known to be pro Advani and anti Modi, Kulkarni however conceded that the new government indeed may be that of the NDA led by the BJP "but whether it will last its 5-year term or not is unknown". He agreed with Shekhar Gupta that the people of this country will not allow Modi to "challenge the idea of India".

Siddhartha Vardarajan, like N Ram, was not so optimistic. "Mr Modi is being backed by corporates- what do they expect from him? They feel that Modi is going to deliver on projects…it is different kind of faultline…the corporates are on the radar and Hindutva is under the radar."

Sudheendra Kulkarni remained optimistic: "Democracy is much bigger than any party or leader."

Headlines Today ran an interesting programme titled "Your vote 2014- the twitter debate" anchored by Rahul Kanwal who said that this would be an "election that will change the course and direction of our country". The social media's take on the elections once again revealed the chinks in the polarised election that India is facing.

In another heated debate on Times Now, this time on Kejriwal's alleged comments about sending journalists to 'jail' if AAP came to power, Arnab Goswami thundered: "The new independent media in India has been born…it is young and bold and it does not need any certificate from any politician…you cannot take away the free independent media from India…then the country will sink."

But he failed to answer a question put to him by one of his panellists- Satyanath Sarangi- as to why the media had failed to cover the story about the road accident in which Mukesh Ambani's son was allegedly involved.

Sagarika Ghosh of CNN-IBN took the debate about the corporatisation of the media to the Press Club of India in Delhi. She did a Media Chowpal in the Press Club and she quizzed journalists on various issues from paid news, corporatisation of the media, the attacks on media by politicians and similar issues. The response was mixed.

The journalists, who were questioned, said that it was wrong to attack the Fourth Estate as majority of journalists were still professionals with integrity. They felt that Editors needed to do soul searching on whether owners were bringing pressure in the newsrooms. Examples were given of how in post independent India even Prime Ministers of Nehru's stature had to wait to meet senior editors.

One thing is clear. In the coming days, in the run up to the 2014 elections, both the media and the politicians will be under intense scrutiny. Both will need to do plenty of soul searching if they really want to restore trust in the institutions they represent.