Vidhya, Ram and Harish blacken their face yet again

The Chindu camp must be horrified at the Gujarat verdict. After breathlessly rambling about the sad state of the BJP, it must have expected a close fight at least. It must be petrified to see a repeat of 2002 , much to its chagrin. Chindu gives a generous dose of advise to everyone - from the governor to the Prime Minister. How about giving it a taste of its own medicine?

1. Keep your eyes open when reporting. Don't pay your "Special Correspondents" and "Election Experts" depending on how low they stoop in slandering a particular party.
2. Stop reckless reporting. Even if 1% of what you had predicted for months together had come true, the congress could have come close to the 90 seat mark.You misled your readers for months together and conjured up an image of massive anti-incumbency. Do you still have the locus-standi to talk about objectivity,balance and fairness?
3.You talk strongly about politics of hate. But you adopt journalism of hate . Your reporters spewed venom while covering the Gujarat elections.A rabid anti-BJP approach cannot be passed off as secularism.
4. You cannot sit in your ivory tower and make predictions about ground realities in Gujarat. Either you were lying or were incompetent in gauging the public mood- either of which is a shame.You had predicted that Modi magic wont work in the rural areas. On the contrary, the BJP won close to 80 seats out of the 125 rural seats. Don't led your ideology blind you.
5. Be graceful in conceding defeat. Accept that Modi has the mandate of the people. To borrow your words "a constitutionally elected government" deserves its due. Don't be a sad loser by harping on "polarisation", "hate-campaign","electoral malpractice" , etc. If BJPs 127 in 2002 was because of communal polarisation, how would you explain this repeat?
6. Don't make any effort to insulate Sonia Gandhi from this debacle. Had the Congress won , all credit would have gone to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and even to her children . Why should she be spared the brickbats when she leads a party to defeat?
7. Stop making ridiculous inferences. Had Congress won, Harish Khare would have devoted a page to celebrate the resurgence of the Congress in Gandhi's land. He would have said that the BJP's brand of politics has been rejected by the people and that they have reposed complete faith in Sonia's secular credentials. As a tail piece, he might have also added that this BJP defeat proves that Sonia's foreign origin is a non-issue. But, now that the Congress has lost, no chance for that. You can expect scandalous opinion pieces targeting Modi.
8. Don't indulge in scare mongering like Modi is large than life, he is a threat to Advani, he is PM hopeful and his win has rattled some BJP leaders etc etc.

The reaction of the media has been disappointing. Vinodh Mehta says on Times Now that Rajnath Singh looked very 'sad' when he held the press conference announcing the BJP victory. He saw some tension in the BJP right away. He was also wondering what was the hurry to hold a press conference before Modi? I don't think the BJP would even bother responding to such silly statements.Some even senselessly suggest that Modi won, but the BJP lost. Even the commies can't be so stupid. Some ponder why Modi was at the forefront of the campaign. I wonder how is that any of the media's business? It's a state election and the CM is the face of the party. It happens everywhere. Did anyone dare ask the DMK why so much prominence was given to Karunanidhi/Stalin when the DMK won the state elections?Did the DMK stand discredited because it was a personality contest. And for God's sake, its the prerogative of the BJP campaign managers to give importance to whoever they like. The media has no business questioning that.

There is a message in general for the English Language Media. They must realize that they are not omnipotent. They can shape public opinion, but can not manufacture it. If they don't realize this, they will end up with egg on their face. Ask Ram & Co how embarrassing that is.

PS: I don't think Chindu would learn any lessons from this debacle. I am expecting a scathing editorial and a senseless post election analysis.