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NEW DELHI: You know the electoral scene has begun to shift when anchors and television celebrities who had reviled an individual and his party to the point of blacking him out for the best part of a year start flocking to him. And this is happening now in Delhi with Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal who has suddenly back at the centrestage of media attention, good or bad.
Kejriwal shows no bitterness or rancour and accepts the renewed attention with ease. But it has not been an easy ride for this activist turned politician right from the word ‘go’. And a look at the ‘havala’ charge now that has television drooling, makes it clear how unreasonable the coverage gets. Take the Kejriwal interview by NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar of “Kiran Bedi interview’ fame that seeks to pin the AAP leader down is a case in point.
Kumar wants to know why AAP did not check the companies that had given his party Rs 50 lakhs per four cheques. Kejriwal makes it clear over and over again during the interview that one, the money had come by cheque which is a legit transaction; two, their team had checked that the companies were registered with full papers; and that it had a pan card and address. All this was done and cleared, Kejriwal insists over and over again asking Kumar how he was responsible if the verification systems that should be in place by banks and the government before registering bank accounts and issuing pan cards. Kumar just kept repeating the question over and over again, despite the convincing response, and finally let go when Kejriwal insisted on knowing what process NDTV adopted to check the antecedents of a heavy advertiser.
Then again Kumar asks Kejriwal about Kiran Bedi. The AAP leader says he thinks she is a good woman. Then whats the problem Kumar asks. The problem is the BJP, Kejriwal says and says he will explain how. So then he shows some advertisements issued by the BJP in the newspapers that these were hitting out at his family as well. So how is Bedi responsible, Kumar asks. She is leading the BJP in Delhi, Kejriwal responds. Kumar does not accept this, and keeps asking why are you bringing Bedi into this.
Interestingly Kumars brash style that worked so well with Bedi because she responded in a similar style, has not worked with Kejriwal. The AAP leaders style, smile and laugh, and quiet and reasoned arguments were a foil to Kumar’s style that worked against the journalist. In this interview: advantage Kejriwal.
Kejriwal’s relatively easy period with the media was during his days with Anna Hazare in the India Against Corruption movement. When he decided to form the Aam Aadmi Party he was attacked for being an opportunist, of using Hazare to promote himself. This writer has direct information that the idea of starting a political party was discussed threadbare amongst all the luminaries of the India Against Corruption movement, in meetings attended by Kejriwal and Anna Hazare, There was a difference in approach and finally Kejriwal went ahead with the support of many others in floating a political party, while Hazare decided to stay where he has always been. He was not happy with the split, but then both sides were adamant about their respective positions and agreed to disagree.
The media did not look at this, and jumped up along with the Congress party and the corporates that Kejriwal was attacking to insist that he had stabbed Hazare in the back and that he had proved himself to be an opportunist. Rumours that he was working with the BJP were floated against him, with the Congress and the BJP both giving fuel to this whisper campaign that convinced many sections of the Left as well at the time. The 24 hour television attack on him, projecting his protests as ‘antics’ added to the growing suspicion about Kejriwal with the media, instead of informing, again working with the then establishment to disinform.
Kejriwal a well known activist, who had made the Right to Information a cause, was not an unknown figure in Delhi. Not particularly charismatic at the time he was visible in Delhi NGO circles and never particularly controversial. Through the anti-corruption movement he found himself on a large public platform, and being intelligent and canny was able to convert this into a ‘movement’ of sorts. Certainly not a mysterious figure as many a journalist would testify, including this reporter, and an individual who came into his own when people started responding positively to his simple and rather direct style of talking. He brought in the activists irreverence and attacked corporates and black money without fear or favour in a style that present day journalists could not understand, and did not want to understand as they were ruled by many of the business houses Kejriwal was attacking.
Interestingly there were differences within the communist parties about Kejriwal with the one, more pro-Congress section of Left politicians and intellectuals insisting that he was not a person to be trusted, and the other of the view that a vote for him in the last Assembly elections would certainly not hurt anyone but the BJP and the Congress. Kejriwal himself did not reach out to any party, including the Left, with the result that he was left rather alone to contest the last Assembly elections without any sort of understanding with the other opposition parties.
The media mounted a huge attack on him with AAP leaders being invited on the main news channels only to be pilloried over and over again. Several television journalists were not even willing to recognise what was fairly obvious towards the end of the campaign at the time that he would score well in the polls, and insisted that his excellent performance was a huge surprise, when actually it was not. That AAP would fare well was very clear to those scribes who bothered to speak to the people across the city.
Many close to Kejriwal believe that the ambitions of some of those close to him at the time, and the pressure exerted on him by the media was largely responsible for AAP agreeing to form the government in Delhi. The BJP and the Congress party united with the media to badger Kejriwal night and day as to why he was not accepting the challenge, and why he was running away from forming the government. No one stopped to ask why the BJP that was the single largest party in Delhi was not staking claim, with the pressure on Kejriwal mounting by the day. So instead of continuing with his initial response of asking the BJP why it was not moving to form the government, Kejriwal started backing down and finally said that AAP would begin consulting its constituents before taking a decision. The result was inevitable and he decided to stake claim, and the rest is history.
The media that had been hounding him for answers as to why he was not accepting his responsibility, turned within minutes of being dishonest to his cause, and forming a government with Congress support regardless. Kejriwal was not projected as an opportunist, looking for power. His attempts to explain were drowned out, and his 49 days in power were certainly not easy insofar as the media was concerned. Every charge against him by the BJP and the Congress was highlighted, and his offbeat style was projected as irresponsible and certainly not in sync with the media-defined behaviour of a chief minister. There was nothing that Kejriwal could do that was right for the media, with even his master stroke of reducing the power tariff inviting major criticism. This in fact was a masterstroke that is paying him rich dividend in these elections, with the urban poor deciding to support him on this one action.
Kejriwal’s dharna as chief minister, his sleeping in the cold of the night on the pavement of Raisina Hill along with his supporters was pilloried by the media as ‘drama’ and ‘theatrics’. He finally bowed out of office, after which he ceased to exist for television with his party virtually blacklisted by the channels. So for a year after the Varanasi Lok Sabha elections where Kejriwal had of course ignited media curiosity, he was blacked out with his party. And invited to the studio, or rather AAP leaders were, only to be lampooned and ridiculed for the so called ‘antics’. There was a concerted effort to project him as something of a sham, opportunist, and finally unreliable and untrustworthy for walking out of government in 49 days.
No explanation satisfied the shouting anchors, with the BJP and the Congress leaders joining in the cacophony initiated by big business. The result of blacking out Kejriwal is that once again he has caught everyone all unprepared. In the proverbial ostrich like approach the media was certain that if it buried its head deep enough and did not see Kejriwal, the world too would not see him either. So it is again coming as a major surprise that Aap is not a spent force, in fact quite the contrary, and even if the media had blacked him out the people are not entirely willing to do that.
Hence the flavour of the campaign is Kejriwal again, with the Mango Man, with his muffler and cap still on his head, finding his way back into the headlines. He speaks direct as he did before, he hits hard even as he smiles sweetly, he does not join the debates that television likes to provoke, and continues with his innovative team to dominate the publicity, and the campaign. Now that he is back on television, he is getting the ‘free’ space that he had been denied all this while.
Interesting to see television scrambling to regain lost ground, and open channels (no pun intended) to the party that could actually be back in power, this time perhaps to stay. And this despite the media’s animosity, with even the donations to his party rising dramatically after the so called ‘havala’ expose!
