Letter of the Week

A succinct argument for rational politics. That is what got Mumbai-based R.P. Desai...

A succinct argument for rational politics. That is what got Mumbai-based R.P. Desai this week’s ‘Letter of the Week’ award. Desai’s writes that when two major political parties perceive there to be an issue of national importance — such as the 123 agreement — it behoves them to set aside their political differences and act in unison.

•This refers to the report on the observations on the nuke deal by Brajesh Mishra made before Shekhar Gupta in a ‘Walk the Talk’. The observations could be considered an indirect signal by the BJP to Congress of its willingness to have a bipartisan approach to 123 agreement. Can we expect both Manmohan Singh and

Sonia Gandhi to shed their rabid hatred of the BJP and talk to that party’s leaders in order to get on with nuclear deal?

After all, the BJP is as secular or communal as Congress. The Congress Party, in fact, is full of caste and communal community biases, so its holier-than-thou approach cannot be justified. It is time for India’s two main parties to develop a bipartisan approach to politics, especially in matters of national importance. Can we expect some positive signals from the Congress before more n-power stations shut down?

— R.P. Desai

Mumbai

Target: PM

•The BJP’s attacks on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are in very poor taste. To use words like ‘impotent’ and to prevent him from speaking in Parliament reflects BJP’s frustrations. The wisest decision Sonia Gandhi made was to have selected this gentle economics professor as prime minster in her own place. Today he has won over the two main pillars of BJP support: the middle class and NRIs. Let us thank God for this incorruptible man, who has done more to remove poverty than any other Indian in history. He knows that the Indian economy needs nuclear power and the latest technology, and has almost put his job on line to ensure that this happens. It’s sad that the communists and the BJP have no such vision.

— J.S. Bandukwala

Vadodara

House manners

•This is apropos of our ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen, being summoned by the Privileges Committee of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha over his ‘headless chicken’ remark. I believe these committees have gone overboard on the issue. How come the yelling, catcalls and jeers by the Opposition parties and the Left, while the PM was reading out the government’s stand on the nuclear deal in Parliament, is not considered equally ‘insulting’ by these two committees? Opposition leaders have no compunction in insulting the PM, even calling him “mentally unbalanced”.

— Cynthia Reilly

Mumbai

Zeroing in on Z

•Justice T.S. Thakur and his colleagues of the Delhi High Court deserve praise for their scathing comments on Z-plus security for VIPs. All of us at some point have had the agony of being made to wait for 20 minutes or more on a crowded road, sometimes in the scorching heat of summer, just so that a politician or a VIP can zoom past accompanied by a motorcade. As the honourable judge observed, most of the time the security personnel are very rude and treat the common man as second-rate citizens — pushing and humiliating them. These modern-day maharajahs should realise that precious public money and time is being wasted on their protection.

— Noshir R. Karkaria

Ahmedabad