India Today ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai may be a staunch Modi detractor but the same isn’t true about his son. In a news show “Netagiri” on ‘The Lallantop’, Sardesai seemingly admitted that his son is a big admirer of PM Modi.
“Very interesting, my son says Jaipur, there is a four-lane road. He came back and said look at Modi Ji did this. When I said it was Nitin Gadkari, the Urban Development and Highway minister, he said, no, there is Modi Ji. This new generation…” Sardesai says in the video.
Notably, India Today recently conducted the Mood of the Nation survey that said PM Modi enjoys wide support across the country to lead the BJP into its third term at the Centre. At present, the BJP is expected to win 304 seats, which is well past the 272 mark needed to stake a claim at the Centre.
PM Modi, in his speech in Lok Sabha, set an ambitious target of crossing the 400 mark for the NDA alliance, with the BJP slated to win more than 370 seats.Nevertheless, Rajdeep Sardesai and other Modi detractors have long expressed frustration with the soaring popularity of the Prime Minister.
Recently, Sardesai had a meltdown during the show of ‘Democratic Newsroom’, where he blamed the news channels for the widespread belief around the country that the BJP will return to power with an even greater mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Blaming newsrooms for trumpeting ‘Ab ki baar, 400 paar’, a political campaign that BJP and its supporters have been echoing, which denotes that the saffron party and its allies might rack up over 400 Lok Sabha seats this time, Rajdeep fulminated that they might as well change the ‘Democratic Newsroom’ to ‘Single-party newsroom’ for drum-beating about the likely victory of the BJP in the upcoming polls.
“I am amazed and amused by the drumbeat that we have. It is almost like you have decided, why refer to it as ‘Democratic Newsroom’? Why not call it ‘Single-party Newsroom?” Rajdeep complains.
However, Sardesai’s colleague, Rahul Kanwal, swiftly rebutted him, exposing the ‘veteran’ journalist for his prejudice and absurd reasoning to blame the newsrooms and drumbeats of ‘Ab ki baar, 400 paar’.