I have seen many Anti-Modi people accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not giving public interviews or doing press conferences. Though, they tend to completely ignore the method which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using to connect to each and every citizen of this country. To name a few: Mann Ki Baat (One of the most famous programs), NaMo app, emails, direct letters to people, PM Portal, Twitter & other social media platforms, and various events like Pariksha Pe Charcha etc.
From last many days Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving television interviews to top media houses of the country and to be obvious it raised a question to me that why Rahul Gandhi is not giving television interviews?
From the last many days, so many exclusive interviews of Rahul Gandhi has been published in the print & digital media but very few on the television media. Why? Obviously, only Rahul Gandhi can answer to this question. Just a couple of days back, India Today Group published an exclusive interview of Rahul Gandhi (President, Indian National Congress) which raised a lot of questions for me. Let me ask and pre-evaluate some questions for the readers:
- Why Rahul Gandhi is not giving television interviews frequently like Narendra Modi?
– Since, the election campaign has started Narendra Modi has appeared more on the television interviews where he answered variety of questions ranging from Rafale to Jobs and from Surgical Strikes to Memes on the internet. Narendra Modi has given interview to Network 18, ANI, Times Now, Akshay Kumar, India TV, DD News & Rajya Sabha TV whereas Rahul Gandhi has given interview just to NDTV & TV9 only. Though, ostensibly an equally prominent leader and one of the major competitor to the sitting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi looks on the backfoot on this front.
– We all know what happened in one of the last television interviews of Rahul Gandhi with Arnab Goswami where Rahul Gandhi was not able to answer the questions properly and he was repeating the same thing to every question. Maybe Rahul Gandhi has this fear now because he knows he can’t answer the questions properly and it may damage his image in the society and will give yet another blooper of Rahul Gandhi. At this time of elections, definitely, Rahul Gandhi would not want yet another of his blooper. This might be one of the reasons which I could think because of which Rahul Gandhi appeared on very few television interviews.
– Rahul Gandhi thinks television interviews are out-dated and print/digital interviews where people can read would be better? No.. certainly not! But yes, it is possible that Rahul Gandhi is avoiding the television interviews because he can’t answer properly but in the print/digital interview he can make sure that absurd pauses, unwanted talks, unrelated things will not come in the writing part.
- In the India Today Group’s published print/digital interview why Rahul Gandhi is wearing lapel mic (see the image attached)?
– While Rahul Gandhi seemed to wear the lapel mic in this interview, is it possible that Rahul Gandhi was giving television interview but then he messed up in that interview and thus then asked the team not to publish that television interview and rather make that interview go as a text?
– There’s an extremely rare possibility that lapel mic was attached to record what Rahul Gandhi is saying just to transcribe it later because usually, journalists use mobile phones or recorders to record such interviews where both the question and answer is properly audible. Seriously, if India Today Group or Indian National Congress claimed that it was used just to record the interview then it will be the most laughable think on the internet today. So why is Rahul Gandhi wearing lapel mic in the print/digital interview?
- Why India Today was running the Ads for Mega Exclusive Interview with Rahul Gandhi on India Today at 6:30 PM and what happened to that interview then?
– As you can see in the images, India Today was running ads for the exclusive interview with Rahul Gandhi with Rahul’s 1st and Only Interview – what was that all about? India Today Group ran the show with QnA thing. Seriously! That’s a unique idea for the Mega Exclusive interview of Rahul.
– Not just this, India Today posted on their Twitter about this interview and asked the users to WATCH the interview. Don’t you think more than watch – it should be “read the interview?”
- If video interview of Rahul Gandhi was recorded by India Today Group, then is it OK for India Today group to agree to drop it? Is this fair journalism?
– Certainly, this is neither fair nor even ethical of India Today Group if they really did this. Every person will agree on this with me.
– We all need to ask the question to India Today Group on what is the truth? Did they really participate in something which is not ethical? Is this what one of the biggest news houses should be doing?
– India Today Group went on to tweet that they did not record the interview but these raises even more questions like –
- How come India Today Group did not do a video interview in the era of digital world? Anyone in the right sense would pick for video interview than print interview, isn’t it?
- The second option would be – Rahul Gandhi didn’t want to give a video interview? (For some might be reasons which I added in this article)
What does it convey? I think we all know what it is and yes it’s suspicious. Possibility of ‘a’ is definitely less than b. Isn’t it?
- Does Rahul Gandhi have some problems with television interviews?
– Even though so many of television news channels might have approached Rahul Gandhi’s office for the television Interview seems Rahul Gandhi is in no mood be on the television interviews more frequently.
– Though, I can’t accuse someone but there is a possibility of the fixed interview as well where the questions and answers are scripted already and Rahul Gandhi just has to answer that but I do believe, that learning and giving proper answers will be the big task for Rahul Gandhi as we have seen Rahul making mistakes while reading his public speeches as well. If someone cannot read something which is written properly, expecting that person to learn and memorize the answers and answering that properly is surely undesirable. Also, that may answer the question why isn’t he coming on the television interviews frequently as well. New sets of questions and new sets of answers every other day will be too much of learning to do. Isn’t it?
I don’t think that either Rahul or Indian National Congress or India Today Group will reply to some of these unanswered questions. But let’s keep asking because if something is wrong we need to stand against it.