Final Interview before Election starts: Part 1

(19th April 2004)

"Welcome to Firstpost. I welcome you all to our channel's first broadcast with DNA, Daily News and Analysis with Palki Sharma.

Tomorrow, the first round of voting will start. Whether Vajpayee government will get another term, or INC will make a comeback in power, only time will tell.

NDA, and UPA are both contesting on all 543 seats. BJP, the leader of NDA from 412 seats, and INC, the leader of UPA from 423 seats.

This election, will be unexpected. Like many parties in the past, like NCP for example, have broken away from INC in the past. There was a time when the Congress we know today lost its 'palm' election symbol. During Indira Gandhi's era to be exact.

Just some months prior, INC was broken up again, and this time by Indira Gandhi's granddaughter.

The congress party didn't get a wind of it happening until her new party was registered. As of now, a total of 235 members of Congress, mostly young people between the age of 18 to 35 have been taken away by BP.

There were some speculations of taking away India's former finance minister Manmohan Singh, but there was no confirmation or denial from Manmohan Singh himself.

Today, we will have a DNA test of a new party, BP, with its party president, Shreya Gandhi in an exclusive Interview."

The camera shifted to Shreya Gandhi, who was sitting on the round table, opposite of Palki.

"Thank you for having me here."

"Welcome to Firstpost. Shall we start with the interview?"

"Yes."

"Before starting the interview, I will like to inform our viewers that you can send your questions to us too, via the text, audio, or video on the phone number and email showing on your screens.

We will have a special segment named Question Hour at the end of all of our interviews, so stay tuned.

Shreya ji. I would like to start with this question first. Why did you help your friend Himanshi Gupta to create Himanshi TV Network, which owns Firstpost? And even if you did, why announce it in your transaction statements that are always updated on your blog?"

"Well... I am an arts girl. From as long as I remember, I always liked singing, writing, drawing, and such. Himanshi is my long time best friend. We know each other since KG. She comes from a medical background, and I come from a political background. So, pursuing things in arts was very difficult for us.

Initially, I didn't even want to join politics. I came across a manga, you know, Japanese comic, called Dragon Ball in my childhood. I started drawing stories inspired by that.

You know Naruto?"

"Yes. I have read it. It is good."

"Yeah. I was able to publish it in Japan, and it is currently within top 20 best selling mangas there. But in India itself, it was blocked by the censor board. Because it showed blood, in a medium which it considers to be only for children.

I think I was 9-10 when I created the first volume, and I was very pissed. I complained to my father about it, who was the Prime Minister at that time. I told him to fix censor board, which doesn't have any problem with showing stalking as romance, but doesn't even have basic knowledge of what art industry is.

'Those old self-proclaimed Sanskari babus are trash. Fire them, and appoint some young people who are actually open minded with Sanskar.'

I remember that I said the exact same thing to him when I was screaming.

But he just dismissed it as a kid's tantrum.

That was when I first wanted to actually join politics.

But, I can't do both things, right? I will become too busy to draw what stories I came up with. I was teaching Himanshi to draw mangas, and she has actually drawn a story that I made, 'Love is War'. It is a school drama that I started writing when I was in college. It isn't released yet. Because censor board considers comics to be something only for kids.

I am going to change the censor board to be more liberal, and not morally corrupt that movies with stalking, abusing women, bullying in school and colleges, is shown as romantic and comedic. Show what is bad, as bad. Where plagiarising is ignored. Where Hinduphobia is normalised.

You don't know how disgusting it is that despite having the richest music talent and history in the world, our most iconic songs are ballant copying in tunes and all except the lyrics. Some our just Hindi translations. The most disgusting thing that was allowed to be passed was plagiarising Israel's national song. I won't take the name.

Moreover, we are being given low-quality stories, copies from foreign, remakes, and only one or two genres. You know, monopolies. If someone wants to write a good story, will he or she be able to get it to become a movie?

The only movie industry that is doing good in delivering good stories is Malayali industry.

I have made several stories with Himanshi, with which I want to start comic, anime and drama industry. Quality that people deserve. Himanshi is someone I trust, and has talent.

And if you see the structure in which the Network is made, anyone can rise to become the CEO.

As for this news channel, I personally wanted it to be able to give our people the truth, and actually deliver news instead of playing by the rules of political parties. And most importantly, to check my party's members.

I can't see where is corruption happening, who is doing it, and who has joined the party with bad intentions. Some goons entered the party who led the assassination attempt, and I didn't know."

"Wouldn't you hide the corruption by silencing the reporters?"

"No. I will fire the members of the party if they did something wrong instead. Our party is completely transparent. And we don't want any criminals and corrupt people drag down the party's reputation.

Admiting that something wrong has happened, taking responsibility for it, and fixing the mistake is the general philosophy of the party.

I will give you an example. Bofors scam, in which both of my parents were pretty much involved from what I have heard. Narsimha Rao ji, who went against the communist leadership of the party and brought reforms, and even tried to investigate the scam. But he was sidelined.

Now, can Congress party be ever trusted? No, right? Not one person in the world will say that Congress isn't corrupt.

Even BP has corrupt people. I can't peer into everyone's head to know if they are corrupt or not. But, the members of BP has the fear that if they commit any corruption, I will be the first to investigate them, and punish them according to the law. They will be publicly condemned and kicked out of the party.

This party doesn't support anyone corrupt. And reporters will make our job easier to weed out the corrupt people and increase our credibility. Why will we silence reporters?

And anyway, it's not like I can silence the reporters. Firstpost is a special type of channel. It is a public company, with no share of Future Financing, unlike the other companies under Himanshi Network. And Himanshi is pretty uptite person and easy going. She doesn't mind people questioning her. Though, she will demand you to debate with her, and destroy you with logic and facts. But she won't threaten anyone."

"You say that you can't silence reporters. But your best friend, Himanshi can. Perhaps, you haven't seen a side of her yet?"

"Well, you have some point in that. So, why don't all the news channels come up with strategies to make media more free? We are always open to listen to different opinions and strategies."