Not voting blues

There haven’t been too many occasions when I have felt so helpless in recent years

There haven’t been too many occasions when I have felt so helpless in recent years. Lemme try and remember: a missed flight due to traffic, a lost Microsoft Word file while writing this column around a month back or reaching the Kayani Bakery 10 seconds after it shut for lunch. This morning I saw myself hop from one counter to another with my Voter’s ID Card only to figure that my name wasn’t on the list of voters. I spent around an hour doing that, only to be forced back home, drenched in sweat.

I had to rush for a meeting to Pune so couldn’t get back to the voting booth, but felt so awful. My father chided me for urging readers of this column to vote, and not doing so myself. Sigh.

Perhaps I ought to have run around a bit earlier in the week and not just stopped short at checking my name on the election commission website a couple of months back.

I thought the NDTV 24x7 debate featuring Nidhi Razdan (decidedly the best among Tier 2 anchors on English news channels) with Kunal Kohli, Meera Sanyal, Shaina NC, Sanjay Jha and Kumar Ketkar was outstanding. Kohli made some pertinent points even as he said he was embarrassed about the 52 per cent turnout in Mumbai. Sanyal and Ketkar were as eloquent as ever and Jha was like he always is: @#$*#%$. Shaina appears as if she’s been forced into these TV discussions. She’s clearly not a patch in comparison to a Smriti Irani and would count as one of the weakest spokespersons of the BJP.

Should the media be worried about Modi?
In a discussion on Times Now, Vinod Mehta raised the issue of a fear that media entities critical of Narendra Modi will be targeted if the BJP comes to power and Modi is elected Prime Minister. Given the content one finds in many newspapers and channels, I don’t think there is need to worry on this count. In fact the way a large section of mediapersons have turned right of centre and aren’t as critical of the BJP (and Modi) as they are about the Congress and AAP is a matter of some concern.

Pradyuman Maheshwari is a senior journalist and editor. When he’s not chasing news, he’s watching it. Twitter: @pmahesh
E: noose@pman.in

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