The Congress’s continued election victories are good for the Congress; they are, to the extent the verdicts make the Congress a little more courageous in policymaking, good for the country; they are good for the BJP, on the assumption that at some point of time it will wake up; but they aren’t too good for news TV. Election happens, exit polls say the Congress is ahead, results show the Congress is ahead, and this keeps happening — duh. Where’s the drama? The BJP doing badly is no drama; actually it’s even more boring than the Congress doing well. Haryana is a great state and Om Prakash Chautala is no doubt a politician with many excellent qualities. But there’s only so much drama a surprise Chautala performance in Haryana can produce for national news TV.

So, on Thursday, as masses of panelists led by grimly determined anchors soldiered on, my attention drifted from politics on TV to politicians on TV, who were, of course, flitting in and out of studios or letting various camera crews flit in and out of their living rooms or gardens.

NTPs, we will call them: news TV politicians. Here’s my verdict on NTPs.

The cosiest cross-party pairing: Chandan Mitra and Jayanti Natarajan. I don’t know why, but whenever Mitra and Natarajan are on the same news TV panel, there are a lot more smiles than, say, when Prakash Javadekar and Renuka Chowdhury appear together. Javadekar, it can be said, has a free-form approach to articulation; not necessarily constrained by traditional rules. Chowdhury is one of the few NTPs who can appear even more combative than NT (news TV, that is) likes.

... contd.