When Newsrooms Script Defeat Before the Ballot Does

Politics in India, like our summer heat, has a way of melting away all pretence. And nothing exposes that pretence faster than an election result. The latest Bihar outcome has done precisely that: peeled varnish off old furniture, leaving the cracks visible even to the half-blind.

Congress and its allies have now begun their routine post-defeat rituals: meetings, statements, introspection, accusations of tampering, promises of evidence, and the usual dramatic deadlines—usually two weeks, like a doctor promising that test results will arrive after a fortnight, even when he knows the printer has been out of ink for years.

One ally blames tampering. The other promises soul-searching. I often wonder how these people can fight side by side and still live in parallel universes. It is like a married couple holding hands at a wedding function, only to return home and file complaints against each other to the housing society.

This habit of inventing excuses is not new. I remember a Delhi seminar after the 2019 elections. Intellectuals sat around licking old wounds. Yogendra Yadav, in a burst of self-pity, confessed he distributed pamphlets in Gurugram and yet the BJP candidate won. His rage was so deep, so sincere, that he said he wanted to grab the voter by the collar and call him a bastard. Democracy, in their minds, is sacred only when they win. When they lose, the voter becomes a fool, the EVM becomes a demon, and fate itself becomes a conspirator.

On the other end of the table sat Shekhar Gupta who honestly said he and Prannoy Roy used to peep into homes to confirm whether women actually had gas cylinders. They did. But the editors chose not to see. The truth sat in front of them, waving like a sari in the wind, but they kept their eyes pointed at their own agendas.

Ayn Rand once said one can ignore reality but never the consequences of ignoring reality. She would have been horrified at how creatively Indian politicians avoid reality—an art form more refined than our classical dance.

The truth they refuse to see is simple: for twenty-four years Narendra Modi has been their most troubling truth. Troubled, yes. Defeated, no. They poke him with sticks, but it is they who get bruised.

Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, has taken to fishing and diving into rivers. This is fine—every man needs a hobby—but it does not look good when one’s party is on political ventilator support. Anyone else on a ventilator gets sympathy. Congress gets memes. Even doctors don’t attempt experiments on a patient who has flatlined for years, but commentators keep trying to resuscitate the Congress leadership with analysis and astrology.

Jairam Ramesh had diagnosed the party’s disease years ago. The trouble is that the patient didn’t want the medicine. Instead, the patient began lecturing the doctor, much like a drunk trying to guide the surgeon holding a scalpel.

This delusion has crept into elections as well. Every time they lose, they promise evidence in fourteen days. It is always fourteen days—perhaps because that is how long it takes to forget the promise. The Supreme Court once asked them to produce fifteen real voters whose names were falsely removed from the list. They couldn’t produce even one. Not because the voters didn’t exist, but because their excuses did.

Meanwhile, journalists who once wrapped Congress in a warm blanket of lies have discovered that their blanket is threadbare. Some of them ran surveys, others ran podcasts, and all of them ran out of credibility.

I sit quietly in Bengaluru listen to the news, sip my evening drink, and still manage to predict elections better than these inflated pundits who roam the country like travelling magicians. The problem isn’t with the surveys; it is with the magicians.

Rahul Gandhi, poor fellow, breaks the party the way a child breaks a toy. The parents feel the pain; the child simply looks for the next toy. Congress was not built by him, so its collapse means nothing to him. He plucks flowers from other people’s gardens because he did not plant them. It is a habit born not of cruelty but of carelessness—a far more dangerous trait.

The INDI Alliance too behaves like quarrelling actors on a film set. Instead of correcting themselves quietly, they point fingers at each other. Each wants to be the hero in a film with no director. And a film without a director always ends up as a flop. It is the same story on the political cricket field: quarrelling fielders, each desperate to grab only the catches that come off their own bowler, never off a partner’s.

In contrast the NDA behaves like a disciplined cricket team. They contest fewer seats, win more, and transfer votes smoothly. Simple arithmetic. But simplicity is a burden for those who prefer conspiracy theories.

The Congress and its allies keep shouting, “Remove Modi.” But tell me: whom will you replace him with? You cannot tell a thirsty man not to drink a glass of water unless you offer something cleaner. These parties offer nothing. They don’t even offer a dusty clay pot.

In Bihar, as in Maharashtra, as in life, the same rule applied: those who accept reality win. Those who chase illusions lose.

And so here we are again. The merry-go-round continues. The Congress circles the same track, blaming the wheel for not taking them to a new destination.

Whether Akhilesh Yadav has learned anything from this circus is unclear. But after watching Yogi Adityanath’s dominance, even he must be feeling nervous. In politics, fear is a good teacher. Unfortunately, in the Congress classroom, no one attends the lectures.