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Reproducing an article from New Indian Express... This kind of shameless biased coverage by NDTV and few other channels should be rejected by all sensible Indians.

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She can only win, never lose!

*Wednesday December 26 2007 08:19 IST

S GURUMURTHY

“WHO is the real winner in Gujarat elections?

BJP or Modi?

Who is the real loser?

BJP or Advani or Rajnath?’’

This was how some popular media icons were seen dissecting the Gujarat verdict in chaste English even as the Congress was being decimated.

The media sidestepped the electorate’s verdict, and began to give its own political version about who was the real winner or loser among the victors!

The normal rule where elections are fought between two contenders is that one of them is the prospective victor and the other, the prospective loser. That is, if one wins, the other, without doubt, is the loser. Yet, even after results are fully and finally out in Gujarat — thanks to the media debate — it is not clear to the media who has really won and also who has really lost.

Electoral numbers disclose the simple truth that BJP has won decisively and Congress has failed miserably. Victory, it is said, has many claimants. But, in BJP, the refrain of whosoever spoke for the party was along these lines: the Team BJP has won in Gujarat, with Advani as captain and Rajnath as his deputy, and Modi as the man of the match.

Modi himself has ridiculed those who credited the victory to him minus the party. But, on the Congress side, no one would own the defeat, proving the other rule that failure is an orphan. And some of them would not even see it as a defeat at all, for like M Karunanidhi they say, the Congress got more seats this time, the BJP less! With clues already given by the media, they began saying that it was Modi’s victory, not the BJP’s; in fact, the BJP was the loser!

They were thus searching for the loser from among the victors!

Yet, in a party which has not lost, other than Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, no one was available to the media. The Ashoka Road headquarters of the Congress was deserted on December 23, with most rooms locked.

Sonia Gandhi – who, along with thousands of persons invaded the very office some 10 years ago, had the sitting president of the party Sitaram Kesari locked in the toilet, took his chair and became the president – did not go to the party office at all on that day. Nor did the heir apparent to the throne, Rahul Gandhi, was seen anywhere around. Well, this is post-election. See the pre-poll picture. Sonia was the Maharathi of the Congress and, Modi, of BJP.

This time in Gujarat the contest was more direct and most straight, with the NCP and BJP dissidents led by Keshubhai Patel openly aligning against Modi. On day one, Sonia turned the state election in Gujarat into a national affair. Also her by now famous ‘‘Maut ka saudagar’’ (‘merchant of death’) attack on Modi made him the central issue. For Modi, who set his competence against his adversaries’ contempt for him, Sonia’s attack on him proved the jackpot that positioned him against Sonia automatically.

The Gujarat election thus turned out to be a direct contest between Sonia and Modi. All pre-election reports said that the Congress was banking on the ‘Sonia effect’ to beat Modi. She addressed election rallies in as many as 13 constituencies, according to reports.

Her shadow was all over Gujarat. As results showing the decimation of the Congress started coming out, the omnipresent Sonia disappeared from the post-election theatre. Instead of tracing her out, the media began tracking and discussing who was the real winner – Modi or BJP – and who was the loser – BJP or Advani or Rajnath, or the Congress. But no one would dare add the name of the person on whose strength the Congress had almost proclaimed victory in Gujarat and lost – Sonia. In eight of the 13 constituencies in which she addressed huge rallies, the party lost. While the media reported the huge rallies of Sonia before the polls, it would not report that the party lost most of the seats where she held rallies.

Media’s compassion made it easy for the party to distance her from the humiliating defeat. But now that the very ‘merchant of death’ whom she despised and asked the voters of Gujarat to throw out has won, she does owe an answer to her party and to the nation.

Yet, she keeps mum and instead employs her Alsatians to bark at others, hiding herself behind the iron gates of 10 Janpath protected by ZPlus security. While, in Delhi, her party keeps her name out, many Gujarat Congress leaders seem to have told the media, of course in anonymity, that her ‘merchant of death’ remark has cost the party some 30 seats.

Finally poor Hariprasad Solanki, Gujarat Congress party president, has become the ‘bakra’ – the sacrificial goat. He was forced to go to the party office in Delhi and own up the defeat as his(!) so that Sonia remains the victor. Imagine the party had won Gujarat. Would Hariprasad be allowed to share photo with the victor Sonia?

After she made it emphatically known that she is the real key and Manmohan Singh is the duplicate one, this Congress sycophancy has become an accepted media discipline. Result: All good things happening for the party and in the government are unfailingly credited to her. Whether it is employment guarantee or rural development, it is all conceded as her agenda.

She inaugurates all projects and plans with the Prime Minister as the clapper boy. She is all over in government ads. When oil prices rise, the blame goes to poor PM. When it is cut, it is on her orders! When oil prices are not raised, minister says that it is on her directive. If the Congress party wins an election, it is due to her, but if it loses Hariprasads will bear the cross. In sum, she is exempt here from all scrutiny by the media. It is media’s collective endeavour, not just isolated Congress effort, to keep her above blame, faultless. Hence the debate on who is the loser among the victors in Gujarat, so that the real loser, Sonia, is kept out of discussion.

QED: Sonia can only win. She can never lose.

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