Prime-time Party

It’s official, the BJP has trumped the UPA, 353 minutes to 242 minutes. In the period from April 26 — the day the BJP-led NDA declared its boycott of Parliament — to May 9 towards the end of the session which closes today, the BJP far exceeded the UPA in terms of prime-time space on TV news channels across the country. These statistics confirm two growing suspicions. One, the BJP is the more telegenic, more tele-savvy party. Two, the country’s main opposition party prefers the television studio to other public forums — even, and especially, Parliament.

On the first, we’ve had ample evidence even before the latest figures were toted by the Television Audience Measurement. The BJP may not have won the battle at the hustings in 2004, but in the run-up to those polls, it seemed to have clearly breasted the tape in the television studio. The verdict of the couch potatoes was near unanimous. The BJP had the clear advantage, with its telly-friendly leaders of the second rung, be it the always-smooth Pramod Mahajan, the immaculate Sushma Swaraj or drawing-room favourite Arun Jaitley. The Congress looked slovenly in comparison, all its watchable leaders tucked away in the states, and the ones at the Centre not glamorous at all when they weren’t too tongue-tied because the High Command may be watching. Since then, admittedly, there’s been a little twist to this tale. The BJP second rung’s happy tryst with TV has delivered some embarrassing freeze frames from the party’s point of view; the Uma Bharati episode comes to mind. But the trend is undisturbed: If elections were to be fought — more importantly, if they could be won — entirely on TV, the BJP probably wins.

The second point — the BJP’s preference for TV over Parliament — is a more serious matter. That the main opposition party should hop in and out of the TV studio while important legislation is being taken up in Parliament, and that it should prefer to deliver pre-packaged soundbites on television to engaging and interrogating the government on the floor of the House, speaks of a chilling abdication. It’s a trend that has been with us a while, but it is most dramatically manifest now. When the opposition party loses focus and the ruling party seems not to have a stake in keeping on talking, Parliament and parliamentary democracy itself becomes a very impoverished place.