This obsession is now deceiving the readers!

The following article was written for Niti Central. Pasting it here for reference. 

Just about a week back, I wrote an article arguing that the deification of AAP was getting nauseating. Four days into their swearing in, the media was going gaga as if every single thing that Arvind Kejriwal was doing was unique (while the truth was quite the opposite). I hoped that this deification will soon stop. Alas!

On the morning of January 5, The Hindu did a a no-brainer if a banner headline – AAP decides to contest Lok Sabha polls! Surely this was quite obvious.

Not happy with giving them front page coverage, The Hindu almost repeats the same news on page 10 the very next day (January 6).

The top headline on the morning of January 7 was baffling and deceiving.

The headline was about BJP’s program with a group called ‘Overseas Friends of BJP’. This group had existed since long before the AAP had even been conceived. Even Narendra Modi addressed this group much before Delhi elections were even held. But The Hindudeceitfully chose to mislead its readers by lying blatantly in its headline. In the whole report, there is little mention of “success” of AAP, except for some expert comment that the many NRIs canvassed for AAP on social media and therefore it benefitted AAP a lot!

On January 8, we were treated to this headline on the front page.

Wow! AAP will put up a candidate against Rahul Gandhi. This is such worthy breaking news! A political party is pitting a candidate against a strong incumbent! Who would have imagined?

The headline on January 9 was about the attack by a random fringe group on AAP’s office. I was shocked to see no front page report on January 10. But I recovered soon enough – because there was an editorial and a cartoon praising AAP as usual. However, one line caught my attention:

The evidence is there in the rush of eminent people signing up to join the party, suggesting a freshness of political appeal that is clearly disconcerting to the mainstream parties.

“Eminent” people join the BJP, Congress, TDP, BJD, and many other parties. However, The Hindu finds it prudent to analyse in a manner that implies that the “rush” is only towards AAP. Only two days back, Kiran Bedi, who worked along with Arvind Kejriwal, announced her preference for Narendra Modi.

Day in, day out we are being fed this sham that the AAP is the answer to all our political ills. Like someone joked on Twitter, if we leave it to our media, maybe they will tell us we got independence because of AAP!

Narendra Modi promised to revisit the entire tax structure.One NGO proposing a “Banking Transaction Tax” made a presentation to the BJP. News media was abuzz with talk that the BJP will introduce this tax! IBN Live even analysed this move thus:

It serves two purposes. Stop the exodus of middle class and upper middle class voters to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and give an impression that the party is for a transparent taxation.

See that? There is already an “exodus” of middle and upper middle class. Remember, AAP came second; BJP came first. Yet, the BJP wants to stop the “exodus” of voters to AAP. BJP hasn’t even made an official announcement that they were considering this move, but we are being subjected to multiple articles analysing why BJP is making this move!

IBN’s deputy editor, Sagarika Ghose wrote an article in Hindustan Times that cannot be comprehended by ordinary souls. However, she ends it with a bang.

The secular project needs the energy that we see in AAP volunteers and their commitment to 24×7 politics.

I suggest you don’t bother with decoding what she meant there – but the implication that that only AAP volunteers are committed to 24×7 politics is hilarious to say the least.

The Times of India did a random survey according to which, 58 per cent of people in metropolises want Modi as PM. But 44 per cent will vote for AAP it seems. TOI maliciously headlines the 44 per cent part. It’s another thing that ordinary mortals like us cannot understand how 58 per cent want Modi as PM and yet 44 per cent will vote for AAP! Times Now goes ahead with plugging these dodgy findings thereby ending up campaigning for AAP.

We can go on and on about many such findings. The media has now switched sides from being pro-Congress to openly campaigning for AAP.

AAP came second, BJP came first. Yet, the media will have you believe that they won with an overwhelming majority. And still they continue to call themselves “neutral”!