Won’t talk about elections: Opposition parties and liberal media engage in virtue signaling to hide their loss and frustration

The counting for the West Bengal polls is on. Alongside West Bengal – which by far is the most crucial state this election season, counting of votes is also taking place in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. However, days prior to the counting of votes, the Congress party, its braindead supporters on social media, Indian liberals and a section of mainstream media underwent a sudden awakening of the conscience, after which they decided to boycott counting day coverage. The Congress has, on an official level, decided not to send any of its spokespersons to election-related debates and discussions.

The sudden burst of moral grandstanding caught the public eye when Times Now decided to suspend its counting day coverage, despite running aggressive campaigns for the past one month on how the channel is India’s “election news headquarters”. Until Thursday, the channel was wholeheartedly participating in the Exit Polls circus which plays out on the final voting day of every election season. On Saturday, however, it decided to suddenly take the moral high ground, and announced in a statement, “Viewers, our nation faces biggest health emergency in recent memory. Times Now in keeping with the ethos of tracking the biggest national story has decided to keep COVID news at its main priority, suspending our special election coverage on May 2 and beyond.”

It further added, “As a part of our coverage, viewers can expect COVID related news reports, the latest on the status of the universalised vaccination drive, information on helplines and can interact with healthcare and mental wellness experts on the channel.” Apart from Times Now, last week, the New Indian Express had announced that it was suspending its coverage of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) in view of the COVID-19 situation in India. The newspaper said that the same was a “small gesture towards keeping the nation’s attention focused on life and death issues.”

Apart from a section of the media suddenly deciding to engage in virtue signalling, Congress party spokespersons made no secret of the fact that they were least interested in the outcome of the elections. Part of their indifference stemmed from the fact that the Congress was suffering embarrassing defeats in all five states, and part of their moral grandstanding was owed to the general sense of insignificance that the party has come to attach to electoral battles.

At least two Congress spokespersons, while speaking to India Today, demonstrated how they were not interested in either the exit polls or the election results in totality. Shama Mohamed, while speaking to India Today during the Kerala exit polls on Thursday said, “This is not the day to discuss the exit polls. As we see the rising number of Covid cases, and as well as many people are dying. Everything is put on the Election Commission. The NDMA Act is on, and Section 35 was invoked last year…” Mohamed then went on to say how questions related to the Covid-crisis must be asked of the Centre. All in all, she impressed nobody.

Supriya Shrinate of the Congress, when asked what her party plans to do and say post-May 2 after the imminent rout they are slated to face, chose to instead speak of the Covid-19 pandemic. She listed out random death figures and statistics relating to the daily new addition of Covid-19 cases in the country. Of course, by raising these issues, she sought to add some emotional heft to her otherwise hollow and unimpressive answer to a completely unrelated question.

Liberals like Yogendra Yadav too said that they will not participate in election-related news programmes due to the prevailing Covid-crisis in the country. Yadav said, “Votes must be counted, reported & quietly analysed, but that cannot trump counting of tests, cases, deaths, vaccinations. Count beds,not seats. Epidemiology comes before psephology.”

News media is not, and should not be focused on singular issues or events. The Covid-19 crisis is indeed catastrophic and deserves all the coverage. However, on one day, when the votes cast by the electorate of five states are being counted, wagging the morality card is a disservice to the job of being a media person. The aversion of the Congress and liberals to elections results is understandable – they do not have much to look forward to. But the news media industry must remember that democracy and electoral outcomes too deserve coverage, irrespective of a crisis prevailing over the nation or not.