Random mainstream media musings…

If Arnab joins Bigg Boss, then the first person he will evict is Salman.

Sad fact…
Tens of thousands of murders, rapes, suicides, thefts… per year.
Sadder fact…
Media cherry picks just one to further agenda.

Take any issue.
If 99% support Modi, simply give 99% coverage to the remaining 1%.
#OROP

Yesterday’s lead—Rs 3,000 crore drugs seized in Udaipur.
Second lead—27 more AAP MLAs get office of profit notice, total 48/67 may be disqualified.
Hence media went with #OROP, even though it’s already been implemented.

Headlines for 2019…
#BlowToModi, he’ll will lose #BiggestTest.
India Model has failed.
Malnutrition skyrockets.
Kejri-Pappu great hopes.

Most encounters…
Pre-2000
Punjab under Congress.
Mumbai under Congress.
Post-2000
UP under SP/BSP.
Solution: Focus only on BJP States.

According to sources*.
*Before=Real cultivated insider.
Then=That’s the rumour.
Now=I just made it up!
#NewsIndustry

Narendra Modi’s combined lifetime media coverage (bouquets and brickbats) has crossed that received by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Indira.

These versions by Sunil Rajguru

How Modi almost lost the 2019 general elections, but pulled back just in time!

When Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, the first task he said to himself is, “I have to finish all my enemies for good.” So he promptly threw the national damaad Robert Vadra in jail and even opened up files regarding Priyanka Vadra’s multiple DINs and allocation of a Lutyens bungalow for her.

Modi then went full steam ahead in the National Herald case and also the AgustaWestland scam. That was enough to throw Congress President Sonia Gandhi into jail with a non-bailable warrant.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was investigated thoroughly in both 2G and Coalgate. P Chidambaram many allegations were also looked into. Both were summarily arrested.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi decided he couldn’t take the heat anymore and so he abdicated and took a permanent vacation to Spain. Old fogies like Digvijay Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar realized their game was up and sank into comfortable retirement.

Next in line was the mainstream media. All major media houses were investigated for financial irregularities, Income Tax evasion, foreign exchange violations, links with Pakistani sources and anything else you could think of.

As a result dozens of media moguls and senior editors were thrown in jail with extremely dim prospects. Activists and NGOs all across India found themselves totally starved of all support and faded into oblivion. The powerful Lutyens Club of the nation’s capital was finally busted and the so-called liberals and intellectuals finally decided to keep their mouths shut for good.

Modi surveyed his domain and realized that he was the sole dictator and there was absolutely no Opposition. And he was pleased. Fascist dictator they said! Fascist dictator they got!

However after that things did not go exactly as planned.

The Congress party elected Jyotiraditya Scindia as their President and Sachin Pilot as their Vice President. The remaining old fogies couldn’t take it anymore and all the deadwood was finally jettisoned from the Grand Old Party.

This duo rejuvenated the party big time and all the State units were in turn galvanized. All the party’s young talent came to the fore and as a result they started attracting youngsters all over the country.

All the anti-Modi forces realized that in the post-Pappu era, the Congress finally had a chance of winning and flocked to the revamped party. In a few years nobody recognized it anymore as it became a brand new party simply brimming with new ideas and new talent.

The mainstream media meanwhile was also purged and the new breed of editors decided to do some honest and serious journalism for a change. So instead of indulging in blind meaningless Modi-bashing 24X7 as their predecessors had done, they started doing prim and proper investigative stories.

That ended in exposing a lot of so called stalwarts of the saffron party and Team Modi suddenly looked very vulnerable. They also punched many valid holes in many of his schemes and plans.

Twitter India which had got totally bored of Modi’s unchallenged domain and was discussing Bollywood, food fashion and cricket returned to politics with a bang. They jumped into the bandwagon and started taking all these issues with great gusto. Suddenly Modi’s 22 million odd followers seemed like a liability.

So in the end the New Congress, the New Mainstream Media and even a good part of the social media got together and launched a blistering attack on Modi’s Prime Ministership with cold facts and great ideas for a change.

As a result Modi got a heavy drubbing in the 2019 general elections and found his political career as good as dead…

Then Modi got up in a cold sweat fresh from this nightmare and vowed not to take any concrete action against Congress leaders and his enemies in the mainstream media and make sure they were all alive and kicking in the 2019 elections.

In fact they were his best bet of securing a second term!

Thanks to their intensely vitriolic 14-year attack he had won the 2002, 2007 and 2014 elections in style. He probably needed them more than he needed them!

In fact during the Delhi Assembly elections, Team Modi members had engaged too much with the media and were seen on all the channels all the time. That led to Modi’s first ever electoral drubbing in his entire life.

For Bihar the most reliable pollster Chanakya was giving the NDA close to two-thirds on the upper side making them rank favourites. The final blow came when NDTV declared them victors in their exit polls! Imagine Modi and NDTV on the same side! Sacrilege! No wonder they got plastered in Bihar too and a convict like Lalu romped home!

Modi wasn’t really used to being the favourite and thrived as an underdog. He had to get back to ignoring the media and being hated and attacked by the media. He took steps accordingly. He just had to make sure that Subramanian Swamy wouldn’t throw Sonia and Pappu in jail before 2019 and he was appeased with a Rajya Sabha seat.

And Modi and media lived happily ever after!

The leader with the most Twitter followers shalt win

twitter-848528_640Nowadays in democracies, Twitter seems to be playing a great role and whoever with the most Twitter followers simply wins the elections and consolidates after that. It’s almost a cent per cent record.

First take the case of US President Barack Obama (https://twitter.com/BarackObama). At around 75 million followers he is in a league of his own. But in 2008 he was a rank non-entity and he was supposed to stand absolutely no chance against Hillary Clinton. But Hillary wasn’t even on Twitter then and was soundly thrashed by Obama who debuted on Twitter in 2007 a year after its launch.

Obama thrashed Mitt Romney (https://twitter.com/MittRomney) who after being on Twitter for a good seven years is yet to cross the 2 million mark. This year’s US Presidential race saw no surprises too.

Hillary (https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton) beat Bernie Sanders (https://twitter.com/berniesanders) on Twitter by 7.2 million to 2.7 million. The same thing happened in the offline world and Hillary got the Democratic ticket.

Absolutely nobody gave Donald Trump a chance in the Republican race with many saying he wouldn’t even make it to the Top 5. But on Twitter he (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump) thrashes Ted Cruz (https://twitter.com/tedcruz) by 9.4 million to 1.3 million, again a no contest which played itself out in the offline world.

Now also the mainstream media is staunchly behind Hillary, but it is usually social media which proves to be the deciding factor in the end. Trump is way ahead on the Twitter count, so you can’t count him out!

The Number 2 global politician on Twitter is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) with 20.6 million followers. His rival Rahul Gandhi wasn’t even on Twitter. That also showed in the offline world when Modi’s BJP thrashed Rahul’s Congress by a whopping seat margin of 282-44 in the Parliamentary elections.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (@SBYudhoyono) has 9.1 million followers and he won his two Indonesian Presidential terms. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) has 8.5 followers and he has been Prime Minister/President of Turkey since 2003.

Premiers David Cameron of UK and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel were predicted by the mainstream media of losing their respective elections, but they won. Not surprisingly they are Twitter leaders in their political worlds.

Most of the politicians are national leaders, but regional head honcho and New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) is biggie in the Twitter world with 8.1 million followers and that’s why he won 67/70 Assembly seats in the 2015 Delhi elections!

So whenever you want to watch a democratic election keep your eyes firmly on the Twitter followers of every leader, for it appears that the latest commandment is…

The leader with the most Twitter followers shalt win!

© Sunil Rajguru