When Arnab Goswami gave Sudhanshu Trivedi a run for his money in defending the Prime Minister

That television anchor Arnab Goswami tends to take the government’ line in his prime time debates is well known, but on Tuesday night the Times Now editor-in-chief gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman present on the show a run for his money, when it came to defending the government.

The prime time debate was on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ramlila speech at Lucknow, and its motion was “Has PM Modi put surgical strike politics to an end?” Political opponents had alleged that the PM would use the speech to launch BJP’s political campaign in the state, by politicising the “surgical strikes” carried out by the Indian Army on September 29.

The show began with the anchor taking a jibe at Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Atul Anjan. “You must be disappointed?” he asked.

And pat came the reply, “Aap anchor hain ya Bharatiya Janata Party ke pravakta hain? (Are you an anchor or a spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party?)”.

A point brought up again by the Samajwadi Party’s spokesperson, Gaurav Bhatia. Pointing out that while the PM’s speech was apolitical, posters coming up in Lucknow and other parts of Uttar Pradesh, and even Goa seemed to be giving this government credit for what was an army action. Basically, Bhatia was calling it a “good cop, bad cop” act, also witnessed when the PM called for communal haromony, while his party-man Sangeet Som stoked fires in Dadri. Arnab replied that he had already questioned the BJP about the posters, and it was time to talk about the speech. “But why are you being the spokesperson of the Prime Minister?” Bhatia asked.

Such was the absurdity of it all that Arnab brought up statements made by parties during Afzal Guru’s hanging, Yakub Menon’s execution, and in the Ishrat Jahan case, to state they were confusing terrorism with religion. The statements dated back to 2013, and why they are relevant in the current context is something only Arnab will know.

After this point, the debate descended into a farce with the representatives of the opposition parties raising questions about the PM’s reference to “Jatayu” and his “Jai Shri Ram” slogans. But for the part that the debate made some sense, it was for everyone to see how Arnab had transcended the not-so-fine line between a journalist and a party mouthpiece.