After sitting on them for weeks, CNN IBN finally telecast the 'cash for votes' tape.
But look at the master stroke. They did it on the very same day that Abhinav Bindra won India's first ever Olympic gold medal. The day we had no eyes or ears for anything else!
The result was that CNN IBN absolved itself of the paap of organising a sting operation and then 'suppressing' it.
None of the news channels cared to cover anything apart from the Golden Boy.
The newspapers dutifully carried the 'cash for votes' story the next morning but hardly any people read it and felt outraged.
CNN , of course, clarified to Business Standard that 'it waited to telecast the tape because they did not want to influence the committee until they had testified before it. It said it did not want to air an incomplete investigation'. Yeah right!
The moral of the story is that timing is everything. Had the tapes been aired right after the trust vote, they would have rocked the nation for several days. Regardless of how clear or unclear the link between the cash and the votes was.
We have moved on. And we don't want to look back.
What's more, we are feeling good about Abhinav's victory.
His victory is our victory.
On the other hand, 'cash for votes' reminds us for all that is ugly and shameful about being an Indian. We'd rather not go there - again.
Net: net, justice delayed is justice denied. Telecast delayed is impact denied.
But such is life, and surely this must be a strategic manouevre that would have made Chanakya proud!
