It was one of those ‘Friday firsts’. Whoever reporter must have thought before setting out for Amit Shah’s press conference at the BJP’s headquarters in New Delhi that ‘saakhshaat’ Narendra Modi would walk in! If Shah had known beforehand, it was a best-kept secret in a long time. The media was caught left-footed and that should not be surprising at all because most media in the world, as those in Delhi, are left liberal and no friends of the Hindu nationalist party BJP.

Good. The point is, the media, finally, at long last, without any planning or plotting, had the lamb in its quarter for the slaughter. Unsuspecting, lulled. What made Modi come to Amit Shah’s presser is a mystery and will remain one. Could it be a show of overconfidence and bluster/could it be euphoria of an expected victory round the corner? Was it arrogance in the knowledge that the media had no guts to dictate to him?

Whatever, for the first time in five years, a Prime Minister who consistently and persistently refused to hold pressers was at a press conference and could be forced to take questions and answer them, too. He could refuse to answer once but he would not be able to stop a follow-up question, which could be as direct as “Why do you Sir, Mr. Prime Minister, refuse to answer questions from the Press in an open presser? Are you afraid or do you have things to hide?”

There is more than one way to beard a lion in his own den and Modi would not have been able to avoid answering straight questions posed to him again and again in a captive setting without placing himself in an irrevocably awkward position. Questions that are not only loaded but also pointed. If Modi insists he will not answer and Shah throws a tantrum, it would be telecast live and that would not be good optics for either. Modi would have been forced into making more mistakes.

But Modi and Shah took a gamble and won what they should have lost. And media, which got Modi in a sitting duck position with no hard work of their own, failed to shoot him full of holes. It required some quick thinking and the top editors back in the backrooms should have taken charge. Made good use of the smartphone. Four or five of them could have got together and orchestrated a remote-takeover of the presser using their reporters at the presser, taken hostage Prime Minister Modi and held him and Amit Shah to ransom.

They should have directed their reporters to refuse to take a ‘No’ for an answer from Modi and told them to keep the questions going even if it came to disrupting the presser. Did not matter so long as the presser was being telecast live. Modi could not have been a position to avoid answering for long. That, or Modi quits and runs. That, or Shah cuts his presser short and bolts. Either way it would have been major embarrassment for the BJP.

The media lost a golden chance to compel Modi to either answer questions or run. The media lost a platinum chance to walkout of the presser after Modi refused to answer questions. Within minutes the world have been talking of Modi running away scared and Shah left in shoddy clothes at his own presser.

Now, it’s too late to complain. Shah is back to booths in the 59 constituencies where voting takes place in the seventh phase and Modi is in Kedarnath conversing with the gods. The amateurs in Delhi’s media lost to a truly wily politician. They would have been happier in a world where ignorance is bliss. They will not get another chance to devour the enemy like the Sufi did, devour the wine. (IPA Service)