What are the odds that out of the dozens of news channels that must have kept an eagle eye on proceedings in Haryana on October 15, Focus Group’s cameras would capture Subhash Chandra, Chairman of the Zee Group threatening a voter with a “Main kapde phaad dunga” at a polling booth in Haryana? Probably as low as the ISL breathing a fresh lease of life into Indian football, if not lower. But it did happen and they were there, Focus Haryana’s cameras along with a reporter to catch all of it:  Chandra arriving at a polling booth in Hisar, his entourage that Focus referred to as gurge in tow, Chandra himself looking and speaking like he had had a drink too many too early in the day.

Focus Haryana ran the clip all day long with much fervour, with pan-India Focus News picking it up too.

For the uninitiated, Focus and Zee group share an interesting history, something the former won’t publicly admit to. In 2012, two of Zee News’ editors were arrested by the Delhi Police on charges of trying to extort Rs 100 crore worth of advertisements from a certain company, in return for dropping stories linking the company with the coal scam.  This was preceded by Zee News carrying reports about Jindal Steel being one of the beneficiaries of the coal scam and Naveen Jindal roughing up a reporter from the channel who had sought a comment from him on the same.

This company was the Jindal Group of Companies. Ever since, the companies have never let go of a chance to take each other down. Jindal Group of Companies, it seems, learnt an important lesson during the course of the feud – news media breeds power and it’s important to have a media house at your disposal.  The Jindal Group of Companies, hence, pumped its rich coffers into rejuvenating a beleaguered media company, known currently as the Focus Group of channels. The Jindal Group still disowns any direct ownership of Focus. Newslaundry, however, established with documentary evidence back in May that the Jindal Group of Companies did, in fact, exercise de facto control over Focus channels.

Meanwhile, an FIR has been filed against Chandra under section 154 CRPC, section 131 and 132 of the Representation of the People Act 1951 for “disorderly conduct in or near polling station and misconduct at the polling stations” on instructions of the poll returning officer of Hisar.

We tried to get in touch with Chandra to ask him exactly under what capacity he raided the polling booth and examined identification documents of voters. Chandra hasn’t replied to our query and his secretary told us that he was travelling and didn’t check his mail too often. This story will be updated if and when Chandra responds.

Chandra, however, has managed to find time (amidst his travels) to tweet about the episode, where he claims he’s received many messages to file an FIR against Focus News.

Chandra had reportedly sought to fight elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party  (BJP) ticket from Hisar this Assembly Elections, but the party decided on Kamal Gupta. Following this, Chandra remarked that he was “not a politician but a statesman” and would work for BJP’s victory in Hisar.

BJP did win Hisar, with Gupta convincingly beating Congress’ Savitri Jindal – Navin Jindal’s mother and India’s richest woman. It is unlikely though that Chandra’s statesman-like behaviour at the polling booth played any part in BJP’s victory.