BIHAR FALLOUT – Ravi Shankar Prasad’s arrogance spoke volumes : Shantonu Sen @dr_maheshsharma @narendramodi

SHANTONU SEN

> The night Bihar election results had just become final. I saw a very angry Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was furious. He was on NDTV 24/7. Dr Prannoy Roy the Managing Director NDTV was himself anchoring. He had, on the day before, Saturday the 5th November spent a whole afternoon explaining why BJP will win a comfortable majority. Strangely and unlike most anchors he did not react. His face was a study in contrast as the BJP leader spewed sheer unvarnished venom at the alliance which had just successfully strategized a victory that had laid his party low. While the words that came out appeared to be the out pouring from the mouth of an unrequited but an expectant recipient the silence of the anchor when slighted by the arrogance of the middle level party functionary spoke volumes.
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> The cold anger, at the thrashing the party got in Bihar ,shown by one relatively junior BJP leader and swallowing of the insult that was palpable, on camera in front of thousands of viewers, by the doyen of Indian television is engrossing material . Sufficient for introspection and analysis. It was obvious the defeat in the polls , the sheer scale of it, was not at all palatable to Ravi Shankarji. He was not alone in his Party. But his reaction was , till that time exclusively his. Not just that. The alliance, “ the maha ghat bandhan” was unholy. In his eyes. It was ,as if, it similar to the fate of a young Abhimanuy being attacked inside the chakravayu ,by the seven maharathis ,in Kurukshetra. Here was some one thwarted, he who had taken up , an almost the insurmountable task of single handedly making India a nation respected among world leaders. A country where development after sixty years of a corrupt rule, will be made all inclusive for “ 1.30 million of his countrymen”. Where, for the first time since Independence, Hindutva was a clarion cry. All this was ,most cruelly and in a way quite unbecoming, not being allowed to be achieved. With the past record of a senior member of the alliance , his”a jungle raj”, past and this, now being , possibly replicated, a distinct possibility, was sheer agony for this BJP leader who had cut his teeth in Bihar politics Hence his anger though patent was, in his eyes, totally justified.
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> To all viewers, even all those who were his ardent admirers for his personal integrity in his long years of political life his froth and foam was unexpected and therefore embarrassing. One is not expected to let down his guard to such an extent in public that his own under belly is exposed. But the anchor, a veteran at that, did not hit out as his show was walloped in public. The politician simply got away with some thing he should have never said of the twins who had just scripted a remarkable victory in the Bihar polls. Presumably, Dr Prannoy Roy ,whose personal record of study of exit polls as well as that of his team had just taken a terrible beating, was so discomfited that he marred his anchor’s skill as well. His whole body language, his visage, both showed his struggle to contain himself and respond most appropriately to the churlish , almost boorish words that Ravi Shanker Prasad intoned . But he, shame facedly, let it go. The question why he did so will remain.
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