The following article has been written for Niti Central. Reproducing it here for reference.
At first, I wanted to scan various newspapers and news channels to understand what new points they will pick up to oppose the candidature of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. But to my surprise,Karan Thapar made my job easier by summarising all those arguments in his latest interview with Arun Jaitley in Devil’s Advocate.
The repetitive arguments of Thapar and his ilk have become boring now. However, his style of questioning or in fact, his style of being judgemental over the questions is equally irksome to say the least. Much has been written about his style, so we will skip over that part. However, his assertions at various instances are troubling and need rebuttals. Because these assertions are pretty much resorted to by members of ilk, on a regular basis.
After his touching concern at Advani being sidelined (we analysed earlier on the media’s sudden found love for Advani) and then espousing shock at the BJP not being able to win enough seats under Modi, Thapar moves on to say: “The problem that you face is that the concerns about Narendra Modi… don’t stop with the NDA, they don’t stop with the numbers, they don’t stop with LK Advani’s anger. There are many and multi-fold concerns”.
The TV journalists many a time resort to phrases like “many think so”, “many people believe”,”many leaders disagree” with no quantification of what this “many” even means? For example, if we tell Thapar that “many” people outright dislike his show, would he blindly accept it as a fact and cancel all remaining episodes of Devil’s Advocate? For TV journalists, even a single member of a political party sulking implies that ‘many’ are not happy and therefore, the decision is the worst possible decision ever to have been taken!
To justify his ‘many’ and ‘multi-fold’ problems, what issues does he bring in? DG Vanzara’s letter! Upon being snubbed, he reels out another gem, “If more people like Vanzara come out with such letters, the people of India will smell something fishy.” If? So now, Thapar implies that political parties take decisions based on ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’? Or is that the plan of this ilk? Make other accused release such letters periodically and embarrass Narendra Modi? This old trick has been done to death. Perhaps, it is time that these journalists come up with fresh ideas!
The best part of the interview was when Thapar tries to correct Arun Jaitley on ‘inaccuracies’ regarding the sequence of events the latter had laid out with respect to the appointment of the SIT and the amicus curiae.
“The Amicus did not support the SIT”.
“Your (Jaitley’s) words about what the amicus had to say about the SIT’s report is little inaccurate, because Ramu Ramachandran confirms….”
“The SIT overlooked that. They included Ramu Chandran’s report with their report but rejected his viewpoints.”
Thapar’s great attention to accuracy and detail seems to have failed him when he got the name of the amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran, wrong twice! An earlier blog post details the Amicus curiae’s report and how he did indeed agree with most of the conclusions of the SIT (which Karan Thapar is obviously aware of too). The amicus did not agree on the SIT’s conclusion (arrived at after detailed investigation) regarding Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims. Based on that, he also concluded that ‘if’ Narendra Modi is guilty of any of the charges, then the court can proceed to take action against him under various sections. Isn’t it an elementary argument? But the likes of Thapar twisted it to their convenience. It is one thing to say that if you cheat, you will be punished under section 420 is one thing. Based on that, arriving at the conclusion that you are a cheat is a totally different league!
There was no direction to the SIT on whether to accept or reject the report, so, this insinuation by Karan Thapar is amusing to say the least! To this ilk, the court-appointed SIT’s investigative report has lesser value than the opinion of the court-appointed amicus curiae’s opinion! Moreover, to round up the interview, from the 16 minutes onward, Karan Thapar comes to the key question that “many” of his ilk ask, “Why doesn’t he apologise and regret for 2002 and once and for all bury that ghost.”
Jaitley gave a fitting answer to this shameless demand. Narendra Modi himself has given a fitting answer, many times to this shameless demand. Shameless because this ilk believes Modi to be guilty of killing people and is ready to be content with a mere apology/regret from Modi! Nothing can illustrate more the depths to which this ilk will plumb to, to satisfy their ego.
And then Thapar resorts to the biggest lie ever, “You know, if Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi can apologise for 1984 is Narendra Modi to arrogant, too big to be able to apologise”. This ilk has no shame in spreading this canard that Sonia Gandhi apologised for the 1984 pogrom. They hare shameless and feel proud that a mere apology will assuage the kith and kin of those dead. And they have no shame in eulogising Sonia Gandhi for something she has never done – seek an apology.
Left with no choice, Thapar resorts to another irrelevant argument – the BJP believes in one man, one post. Why is Modi holding three posts? Brushing this argument aside, Jaitley aptly said that if these are the kind of objections, then they are happy with the decisions they took!
At one point, Thapar argues that the message the BJP is sending out is that the party has reduced itself to a ‘comic entity’ merely because Advani did not agree to this decision. I’d urge you to watch this brilliant interview of Madhu Trehan with Thapar, to know who has been reduced to a ‘comic entity’!
At the end of the interview, Arun Jaitley said, “I am very happy if these are the main concerns with Modi’s candidature, because this means we took a very good decision!
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