From India Today to India TV, Zee goes all guns blazing against top media owners

The exit polls nearly got everything wrong. The markets tanked. The pollsters cried. And the papers underlined the need for stricter disclosure norms. But while the trends solidified on Tuesday, Zee News chose to bring out the knives against at least four media rivals and their owners – purportedly over losses faced by market investors due to the projections. 

It was an unprecedented attack by all standards. It wasn’t just replete with wild allegations against these powerful media owners, but also insinuations about the BJP’s alleged links to the media ecosystem in India. Curiously, the network left out several other channels which had aired similar poll projections.

“We want to ask the owners of all those news channels on what basis did they give the NDA more than 400…on what basis did they project less than 200 for INDIA?” asked anchor Pratyush Khare, hosting a show along with Shobhna Yadav, at 4.37 pm on Tuesday.

First came the questions for India TV owner Rajat Sharma.

“Was an exit poll shown on the directions of a big stock market investor? Who is responsible if lakhs are unable to feed their family? Did you show an exit poll like this because Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister got you money after you left Zee News to launch India TV? There is a rumour that PM Modi was upset with you a few years ago and a Mumbai-based businessman had helped mend your relations with him on the directions of the late Arun Jaitley.

Then came News24 owner Anuradha Prasad’s turn. 

“Did you run such an exit poll on the directions of your husband Rajeev Shukla? Rajeev Shukla is the BCCI vice-president while home minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah is the secretary. Was it because of this BCCI friendship that a wrong exit poll was shown?” 

Then came the allegations against ABP owner Atideb Sarkar. 

“Some days ago, an editor who you had sacked was recruited by your organisation. Was the exit poll run on his direction? Advertisers were told by the system not to give you ads. Did you do this to bring back those advertisers? Who will compensate for the loss of crores of hard-earned money?”

This was followed by accusations against India Today group’s owner Aroon Purie.

“Did he not know that the exit polls will impact the public?”

The ticker asked whether Purie was “unaware” that the exit poll will have an effect on the share market. “Did India Today executive editor Kallie Purie not know?”

Zee News had its own exit poll, with help from artificial intelligence, on June 2. It had predicted 305 seats for the NDA. Its INDIA count was around 195, much lower than what the alliance clocked. On Wednesday, several newspapers carried Zee ads promoting that survey.

The network, which until not so long ago was accused of being a “godi channel” due to shows by anchors such as Sudhir Chaudhary, Amish Devgan and Aman Chopra, seems to be making attempts to change tracks. Its owner Subhash Chandra recently released a video about the significance of press freedom in India, and at a press conference in Delhi last week, reiterated some of his claims.

Newslaundry reached out to all the four channels named on the Zee News show.

“It is all rubbish. At least for the sake of journalism they should have kept some standards. We have been doing exit polls with Chanakya from 2009. Most of the time they have been correct. There was no reason for us to not do it with them. One time we have gone wrong so we regret it. We do not conduct this survey. And we have also regretted to our audience on our channel,” said Anuradha Prasad.

This report will be updated if a response is received from the three other networks. 

Update at 7.05 pm on June 6: Responding to the allegations, an India TV spokesperson said, “Every word mentioned by Zee News in this story is a white lie, baseless, malicious and ill-conceived. It needs to be dealt with the contempt it deserves. The insinuations drawn in the Zee report referring to some imaginary incidents are motivated and defamatory. Zee media should apologise and withdraw the fictitious story. We will take up the issue at the appropriate forums including NBDSA.”