In yet another incident of a verbal spat between a news anchor and a politician on news channels, BJP leader and spokesperson Sambit Patra was asked to leave her show by Nidhi Razdan. The showdown happened on Thursday night’s telecast of NDTV show Left Right and Centre .
Nidhi asked Sambit to leave the show if he did not apologise for accusing NDTV of having “an agenda”.
Spats on news channels are becoming increasingly common, the only difference, in this case, was that there was no 'really loud' shouting match.
The panel was debating on the new cattle trade and slaughter rules notified by the Centre recently and the subsequent public slaughter of a calf in Kerala by youth Congress members during a protest.
The first five minutes of the show had Sambit Patra answer questions about the new rules and a BJP leader in Meghalaya quitting over it.
The spat broke out when Nidhi tried to let another panelist (Sanjoy Hazarika, Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative) finish his sentence, even as Patra tried interrupting. (11th minute onwards)
It was incidentally, Sanjay who asked,“Why do you always interrupt?”
Sambit replied, “I interrupt other people in NDTV only. And I do that because the TV has an agenda and I need to do that.”
To this, Nidhi took offence and asked Sambit to either apologise or leave the show.
“No I am sorry Sambit, either you apologise for that or please leave the programme. I am not going to accept this accusation of an agenda. I am sorry Sambit Patra, just because you are asked questions does not mean there is an agenda,” Nidhi said.
The verbal duel went on with the main debate taking a backseat for almost five minutes. During the duration of these bitter war of words, Nidhi repeatedly told him to either leave the show or apologise.
However, the BJP spokesperson maintained, “No, no I would not leave. Either we will boycott your channel, (if) we come to your channel we will not leave,” or “Why would I leave? I should expose you and your TV's agenda.”
The anchor retorted to those accusations with, “Are you threatening to boycott us?.. So you are most welcome to go to other channels which are glorified versions of Doordarshan, please enjoy yourself.”
We are not sure if Patra left the show, but Nidhi refused to go back to him and engaged with other panelists like DMK spokesperson Saravana.
Patra, meanwhile tweeted:
And when You call this an "Agenda" ...then they pull out the camera from you ... https://t.co/7eRbzjGDFp
— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) June 1, 2017
A few excerpts from the show:
Nidhi: Please leave, you are most welcome to leave. I have no problem. No
Sambit: No, no I would not leave. Either we will boycott your channel, (if) we come to your channel we will not leave.
Nidhi: Are you threatening to boycott us?
Sambit: No, no you cannot say that you leave. How dare you say 'you leave'?
Nidhi: I will. It's my program.How dare you say that we have an agenda?
Sambit: It's your programme? Why do you invite BJP spokesperson and say it's my programme?
Nidhi: What do you mean by the channel has an agenda when asked a question?
Sambit: Yes, the channel has an agenda. You don't allow 30 seconds to the BJP person. We will not leave, we will expose the NDTV agenda rather than leave.
Why would I leave? I should expose you and your TV's agenda
Nidhi: I am done. No, you can play to the gallery as much as you want and very respectfully I will not accept that. You can either come here and have a respectful debate or leave.