Being trolled on Twitter isn’t new for senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and on Thursday evening he, again, was able to secure the first spot in the trending list. This time the occasion was the Mood Of The Nation survey by India Today.
MOTN is a bi-annual survey conducted by India Today to understand the political stance of people across the country. As the media network released the results of MOTN polls that show that the Indians are satisfied with prime minister Narendra Modi’s management during the covid, the veteran journalist seems to have an extremely uncomfortable day at work.
According to the survey, 74% (almost three-fourth) of the respondents stand impressed with PM Modi and only receive a marginal dip of 4% after the August 2020 survey.
The survey predicted that if elections were to be held today, the BJP would return to power with a huge margin. The Mood of the Nation poll shows that the BJP would win 291 seats – eight more than what it had got in the August 2020 edition of the Mood of the Nation poll. As per the latest MOTN survey, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would win 321 seats, up from 316 predicted in August.
The MOTN poll also said that 66 percent of the respondents said that incomes decreased due to the pandemic, while 19 per cent said they lost jobs.
Now, these were the figures that left Rajdeep a little baffled. He was, just like earlier, absolutely bewildered to learn that the Indian public stood firmly behind PM Modi despite the economic hardship faced by the country due to lockdown.
“Let’s be very clear. Income decreased 66 % during COVID times, 19 % say they lost jobs. And yet this poll suggests that people are applauding the government for saving lives, are worried about livelihood but at the same time, they are not willing to say that center mishandled. I still do not have a rational explanation,” said Rajdeep Sardesai in his show
Not only this, when he wondered and asked top cardiologist Dr. Naresh Trehan, who also happened to be Aroon Purie’s (Rajdeep’s boss and promoter of TV Today group) brother-in-law that why healthcare workers were not particularly interested in getting vaccinated, scolding is all that he received in the reply.
While Dr.Trehan tried to explain to him that it is not like they are not keen on getting vaccinated, rather they believe that they already have those antibodies present in them, he continued to interrupt him with the same question.
When he expressed the shock at survey results, people on Twitter left no chance to roast the journalist. One user wrote,
“Today, Rajdeep gets scolded by Dr. Naresh Trehan. I think there is no one on his show except Rhea Chakraborty who has not scolded him.”
Prof. Shamika Roy, a former member of PM’s economic advisory-council also took jibe over him and wrote, “Déjà vu! How can you be repeatedly surprised by your surveys, Rajdeep? Exact same thing happened 6 months back when you found the numbers “bewildering”. May I suggest, the next time just add a few open-ended questions to the questionnaire. It might not be such a deep mystery.”
The survey also talked about the popular leader from the Modi government cabinet and it has pegged Home Minister Amit Shah as the best performing minister in the Modi government. 39% of the participants have voted in Shah’s favour. He is followed by Defence minister Rajnath Singh at 17% and Union minister Nitin Gadkari at the fourth position at 10%.
