Critical journalism is pretty much marginal and niche - these outlets are fewer because there are very little incentives. There are a few like NDTV and Dainik bhaskar, who routinely face sanctions by governmental bodies for not sticking to the governmental narrative.
Unfortunately Indian society specially due to how educational systems are structured do not encourage any questioning of authority and unable to point out criticisms specially in public Easier to stay happier with blind acceptance of information when you barely know whats happening in detail beyond the governments successes.
Even the elections are not without fault, primarily in the working of the Election commission and how free and fair they are (specially in Kashmir) so I doubt your statement about fairness.
The founder of NDTV is a communist, his sister in law and her husband are members of the 'politburo' of one of the communist parties in India [1]. NDTV is effectively a mouthpiece of the left-wing Congress and Communist parties of India.
[1] https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/who-is-brinda-karat-al...
state and central governments have massive influence over what discourse is encouraged and it usually sways towards what their political agenda and inclinations are while opposing beliefs and ideas are sanctioned or put down though state apparatus (police forces , executive orders etc). free flow of information is suppressed when it doesnt favour certain viewpoints.
in a similar manner, blind deference towards the government is encouraged and criticism is punished, you can trace the track record of Indian government (sedition and anti national laws for examples) with this regard going back decades.
I am merely stating why some media outlets mentioned here might be motivated to question one type of government a lot more than another.