Have you seen this anchor? The search for the missing primetime discussion on electoral bonds

Last week, when the Election Commission uploaded its first data dump on electoral bonds, most primetime news broadcasting had either given it a spin or a miss. The majority of anchors who had broached the subject had then seemed to dismiss all allegations of corruption, coercion and quid pro quo in political funding with a common line of argument: the donors were unidentified for each party.

But as luck, or a manifestation of conspiracy theories, would have it, when the data to match the donors to their recipients eventually came out, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was taken into custody in the liquor policy case on Thursday.  

And the media gaze shifted. There were almost no shows dedicated to discussing the issue of electoral bonds on Thursday and Friday. 

Let’s take a look. 

News18 India and CNN-News18 

Discussions on electoral bonds were absent from News18 India’s coverage, with primetime anchors on Thursday and Friday focussing the discussion on the freezing of Congress’s bank accounts and CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest. 

When Tehseen Poonawalla, a panelist sympathetic to the Congress party, raised the issue the question of how Sarath Chandra Reddy of Aurobindo Pharma, an accused turned approver in the liquor scam, gave money to the BJP through electoral bonds, anchor Amish Devgan called this an “extremely fake allegation” which “needed to proved in a court of law”.

News18 India’s English counterpart, CNN-News18, ignored the topic on Thursday and Friday. 

Republic 

Arnab Goswami, in both his 9 pm and 10 pm shows of The Debate on Thursday, focused on live coverage and debates around Kejriwal’s arrest.

On Friday, he dedicated his 9 pm show to discussing Kejriwal’s “Liquorgate scandal”. There was a segment on electoral bonds in his 10 pm show, which mostly talked about the freezing of the Congress’s bank accounts. Arnab also questioned why the biggest donor, Santiago Martin, donated money to the TMC and DMK. The tickers on the show remained focused on the opposition. 

“If the BJP was blackmailing and getting money, why did most of the money go to the INDI alliance,” he said. “Donors paid big bucks to TMC, DMK” and “Did opposition have biggest donors” were among the tickers.

When an opposition leader pointed out that most of the money from the scheme went to the BJP, Arnab qualified his point by saying that he was only talking about a specific case (Santiago Martin). 

Times Now and Times Now Navbharat

Electoral bonds did not feature as a topic of discussion in either Sushant Sinha’s News ki Paathshaala, or Navika Kumar’s Sawaal Public Ka, both choosing to talk about Kejriwal’s arrest by the ED on Thursday and Friday.

India Today 

Aaj Tak anchor Sudhir Chaudhary dedicated both his Thursday and Friday episodes of Black and White to Kejriwal’s arrest. He was among the anchors who emphasised the lack of identification of each party’s donors last week but had no shows once the donors were matched.

On India Today TV, Rajdeep Sardesai also dedicated the Thursday and Friday episodes of his show Newstrack to discussing Kejriwal’s arrest.

Zee News 

Zee News was no different as primetime shows on both Thursday and Friday focused on Kejriwal’s arrest. While Thursday’s shows had more updates on the chief minister’s arrest, Friday’s shows tried to focus on details of the case.

NDTV India

While it skipped the issue on Thursday, NDTV India on Friday discussed electoral bonds on its shows at 7.30 pm and 9 pm.

The first segment on Khabar Pakki Hai focused on how every party had received funding through electoral bonds, while breaking down the numbers. The 9 pm show, Khabaron Ki Khabar, featured an interview with Jagdeep Chhokhar, founding member of the Association of Democratic Reforms, which had led the legal battle for electoral bonds data to be made public.

TV9 Bharatvarsh 

Electoral bonds were absent from TV9 Bharatvarsh’s primetime programming on Thursday and Friday, focusing instead on the freezing of Congress bank accounts and the arrest of Kejriwal.

Vanishing act?

We had earlier mentioned how primetime news had ignored any discussion on concerns emanating from the patterns to the money flow. And those which bothered to mention electoral bonds, did so to comment on the opposition.

Sections of print and digital media had reported on certain worrisome trends from the data so far, including patterns between action by probe agencies and purchase of bonds, grant of contracts, and firms in loss donating to parties or buying bonds many times over their profits. 

But primetime news on prominent channels couldn’t care less. Not until Sunday afternoon last week, when the fresh EC list named donors of around 10 parties, including the DMK, NCP and JDS. 

Before the electoral bonds data was released, Newslaundry and The News Minute had pointed to a pattern to central action and political funding. In case you missed it, read it here.

Three news organisations, including Newslaundry, Scroll and The News Minute, and independent journalists subsequently joined hands to investigate the bonds data. Read our extensive coverage here.

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