This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Kavitha Muralidharan, an independent journalist.

Kavitha speaks about what’s driving the assembly election campaign in Tamil Nadu. "It's difficult to understand the mood of the people this time because we don't have Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. They have been driving the elections in Tamil Nadu for the last 50 years. There's no clear replacement yet," she says.

Laying out the various possibilities, Kavitha adds, "If the DMK comes to power it would primarily be because we have had 10 years of AIADMK and the people seem to have become tired of it.”

Talking about the surge in coronavirus infections in the country, the panel focus on the centralisation of vaccine distribution and discuss whether giving states more autonomy in the vaccination exercise would have been more ideal. "This disease has brought in a streak of dictatorship," remarks Raman.

The conversation also spans the Covid situation in the light of the ongoing elections, legacy media's narrative on the Scania case, Rafale deal and unethical practices during elections. "I feel the media is failing,” argues Jayashree, “because the media and its institutions are so compromised that all of these issues are dying a very quiet death.”

Listen.

Text by Ritika Chauhan.

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