UK elections

Over the past month, we had the odd coverage of the fractured verdict after the UK elections on the Indian news channels.

Of course the main focus of the major channels had been on the 'tamasha of the day' which varied from the serious topic (occasionally) to the trivial (almost daily).

One evening (a couple of weeks back) I was up late watching first Barkha Dutt's talk show at 10 PM followed by the coverage on the BBC on the goings on in West Minister.

On Barkha's program, the two main topics were Jairam Ramesh's open criticism of the home minister on foreign soil and Navin Jindal's letter of support to the Khap Panchayats. In both the discussions the participants which included politicians as well as activists, the panellists were seen (or rather heard) trying to shout each other out.

There was a flash on the NDTV channel that said that Gordon Brown had decided to step down. So I switched over to the BBC. The reporting on the 'beeb' was similar to India (on a breaking news topic) in the respect that there was a central anchor, reporters at the main venues and a set of panellists to discuss and analyse the developments for us then and there.

The similarities however ended there. The reports from the field were crisp and to the point. The panellists were from the three different parties and each one respected the others' airtime. No one interrupted the other or spoke out of turn. Though the topic was of peripheral interest for an Indian like myself, the discussion/analysis was easy to follow.

I was amused because the situation in the UK is something they are facing for the first time but something that we have seen multiple times. For those that are not aware, the election results resulted in a hung parliament.

The Conservatives won the maximum number of seats followed by Labour. The Liberal Democrats came in a distant third but they had enough numbers to support either the Conservatives or Labour. In effect the liberals played the kingmaker role. The problem they faced was to reconcile the differences in positions with regard to policies and issues. They were in discussions with both sides to see if the differences could be resolved. Finally they decided to go with the conservatives.

In the Indian scenario, this is not an issue as most post poll discussions are usually not on reconciling policy differences but furthering personal agendas!

Maybe Nick Clegg, the liberal democrat leader could have benefited from a crash course on post poll dealings from the Mulayams or Mayavathis of the world!