What prime-time debates had to say on AAP Versus Delhi Chief Secy

On Tuesday morning, Delhi woke up to an “unprecedented crisis”.

No, four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court were not holding another press conference.

What occurred, though, was indeed “unprecedented”. Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash had alleged that he had been abused and assaulted on the preceding night by Aam Aadmi Party Members of Legislative Assembly.

One of the two accused is AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan who allegedly assaulted Prakash in the presence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy, Manish Sisodia, at the chief minister’s residence.

The news broke when Prakash registered a complaint with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal. Later, based on the complaint, the Delhi Police registered a first information report that stated, among other charges, that AAP MLA Khan and one another MLA “started hitting and assaulting me [Prakash] and hit several blows with fists on my head and temple”.

This was serious enough accusations to merit a prime-time debate on the deteriorating relationship between Delhi government and the bureaucracy. We weren’t, however, prepared to see Republic TV focus on this crisis for a full two hours — from 8 pm to 10 pm!

The channel’s usual partner-in-crime – the Watson to Sherlock, the Jerry to Tom – Times Now did hold a brief panel discussion as did NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan among others, but these debate offerings weren’t a match to the two-hour “Kejriwal-should-resign-marathon” that Republic TV aired.

During the brief discussion, Rahul Shivshankar, formerly with NewsX and current Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, repeatedly called Kejriwal a “self-proclaimed anarchist” with #AAPKaCrisis flashing on the TV screens.

Other phrases that accompanied #AAPKaCrisis during the less-than-half-hour discussion on India Upfront included “UNPRECEDENTED CRISIS”, “MIDNIGHT SLAP, DAYLIGHT BRAWL”, “SLAP vs SLUR”, “CAPITAL OF CHAOS”, “ANARCHY IN AAP DNA?” and “KEJRIWAL’S AAP CRIES VENDETTA”.

Then Shivshankar belted out Times Now’s stock phrases to indicate a truly rare occurrence: “These are unprecedented scenes. Never before have bureaucrats cutting across all grades been so angry with a ruling party… God alone knows why Mr Kejriwal wanted to meet this chief secretary and discuss official work at midnight.”

He also asked some questions during the debate, such as: “In its three years in office, has AAP pushed Delhi towards anarchy… anarchism?”; “He is very intemperate… Is this self-proclaimed anarchist image of Kejriwal emboldening his MLAs?” and “If the chief secretary was a stooge of the government would his colleagues come out and support him in unison?”

Shivshankar said: “The Aam Aadmi Party is excellent at entrapping people… stinging everyone,” and went on to ask — “Is Kejriwal a force for disruption… anarchism?”

While the former was diagnosing AAP’s DNA, Arnab Goswami was asking for the AAP chief’s resignation on Republic TV.

“Apology would not be enough,” thundered Goswami, the channel’s Editor-in-Chief. The debate was accompanied by hashtags and phrases such as “#AAPSLapgate”, “A MURDEROUS ASSAULT”, “ARVIND SPONSORED ATTACK?”, “KEJRIWAL EGGED ON ATTACKERS?”

Before diving into all this, Goswami had, in his opening statement, also clarified what was newsworthy for him. He said, “For me, the disgraceful level to which the Aam Aadmi Party has fallen is not news. What is news is that one section of the political class, one section of the media is absolutely silent and that section has lost its voice when the highest ranking bureaucrat is the national capital is beaten black and blue by a group of rogue politicians in the chief minister’s residence.”

In a bizarre line of questioning, he asked if it was  “secular” for politicians to beat up IAS officers.

In specific, he wanted to know the reason for the Congress’s and Trinamool chief’s silence on the matter. He went on to say: “Maybe for Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi it was a secular thrashing. Is that the reason why these politicians are quiet tonight?”

He hurled more accusations. “For far too long you see bureaucrats have been beaten and treated poorly otherwise… Look at the disgrace that is happening tonight,” Goswami told his panellists. “I am hearing tonight it was a murderous assault, he could have been killed,” he added.

A review of Republic TV’s Twitter timeline showed how much weight had been given to both sides of the story. Of the approximately 17 tweets which quoted panellists on the show, not one was representative of the Aam Aadmi Party’s view.

The slant was apparent when Goswami got into a tu-tu-main-main with Nishant, a panellist on the show who was backing Kejriwal. During the verbal duel relating to the interpretation of the chief secretary’s words in the FIR, Nishant objected to Goswami’s reference to “murderous assaults” on Prakash.

To his question about whether the panellists, as well as Goswami, had even seen the FIR, an angry Goswami said: “You want me to read it? You want me to read it, Nishant? You damn well let me read it, Nishant. I am going to read it [the FIR], viewers.”

When the panellist objected again that there was nothing in the FIR that spoke about the “brutality of the blows” (Goswami had earlier said the chief secretary was beaten black and blue), the host thundered: “Nishant will you please listen and stop interpreting the chief secretary’s words, just because it is not convenient to you.”

In contrast, NDTV‘s Left, Right & Centre presented both sides of the story. On the panel were Atishi Marlena, AAP’s spokesperson; SY Quraishi, former CEC; journalist Swati Chaturvedi and Rajeev Pandey, a lawyer. While Marlena was given the opportunity to present AAP’s side of the story, where she called the chief secy’s allegations “beyond bizarre”, Quraishi came out in support of Prakash, attesting to his “cultured” nature. This was also indicated in the anchor’s line of argument, which made clear that there were two opposing versions of the said event.

CNN News18 kept the focus on the PNB Scam during primetime — one of the only channels to have done so.

As things stand now, both AAP and IAS officers have their own versions of events that are diametrically opposite. The latest development has India Today gaining access to Prakash’s medical report that indicates, “ mild swelling behind Prakash’s both ears, bruise on his lower lip and swelling over right zygon present in the cerebrum.” Meanwhile, the Delhi Court has rejected the police’s plea for custody of AAP MLAs.

Surely debates on what seems to be a massive standoff between the Delhi government and bureaucracy could do better than name-calling.