Running joke: Five ways to give a political interview on TV and go viral

Kiran Bedi style: Former super cop's prime time cop out

Barely two days after she was declared the BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Delhi, Kiran Bedi did exactly what her party has been accusing Arvind Kejriwal of: running away. Rather than answer a reasonably straightforward question on her erstwhile mentor Anna Hazare, Bedi chose to leave in the middle of the debate sparking the Twitter hashtag #IRunBedi. Perhaps no one was more embarrassed to see Bedi run away than Sambit Patra, who had described the Delhi poll as a battle between "Iron Lady" and "I Run Man [Kejriwal]". Poor Patra seems to have been specifically designated to issue clarifications on behalf of Bedi. The buzz on Twitter was that Patra praised Bedi's punctuality as she left the interview 15 minutes early!

Narendra Modi style: Run, but play the victim later

Being a new recruit, Bedi seems to have been a little too zealous in playing the BJP's favourite internal game: follow the leader. Some years back, Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, left an interview in similar fashion when Karan Thapar probed him on the 2002 riots. But Modi was smart enough to weave the interview into a larger narrative of how the Delhi-based English media was biased against him. Perhaps if Bedi had been smart enough to follow the same, then in some years we might hear "Abki baar Bedi sarkar". But unlike Bedi, Modi was polite enough to walk out saying "Dosti bani rahay".

Rahul Gandhi style: Don't run, but keep wishing that you had

If you are supposed to appear in your first TV interview, that too in the midst of national elections, would you agree to a 90 minute interview with one of the toughest interviewers in the country? I guess not. But Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is made of unenviable and sterner stuff. Despite being grilled aggressively, he remained firmly anchored in his seat, even if it meant connecting every answer to women's empowerment and decentralisation of power. Of course given the political fallout of the interview, many hoped in hindsight that Gandhi had followed the Modi course of "dosti bani rahay" action.

Mamata Banerjee style: Leave in a huff, hurling your favourite swear words

Attack is the best form of defence, no one knows this better than Mamata Banerjee. Be it on the streets of Kolkata or in TV studios, or even on Twitter, Didi is always game for a fight. So when a bunch of students asked her a few tough questions in a town-hall style interaction, Banerjee called them Maoists and threatened that she had background information on each one of them. Big sister is watching...

And we have a winner...

Subramanian Swamy style: Don't leave, keep swearing and make the interviewer want to run

Let the numbers speak for themselves. Here are some of the names Swamy called the interviewer during the debate.

Liar: 53

Congenital Liar: 6

Stupid: 7

Ignoramus: 3

Mental Retard: 3

Disgrace: 3

Shameless: 2

Fool: 2

Coward: 2

Dumbo: 1

Final Score: Swamy 82, Interviewer 0

Towards the end, the interviewer ended up saying "I expunge this programme".