Letters To The Editor

— R. Singh, Delhi

• The much-maligned RSS has spoken up on the utter hypocrisy of all the political parties on the fuel price hike issue (‘BJP gets it from RSS…’ IE, June 12). The Congress and the CPM have made a mockery of politics by opposing their own government’s policy. The BJP’s “protests lack intellectual honesty” as the Organiser editorial said. Vajpayee and Advani would do well to search their conscience to find if they would not have done the same thing as Manmohan Singh, it they were in power.

— N. Kunju, Delhi

Commoners’ worries

• The slogan ‘Congress ka hath aam aadmi ke sath’ sounds hollow in view of the steep increase in petrol and diesel prices. General public, already burdened by inflation, will further suffer due to resultant rise in the prices of other commodities. The UPA government’s claim that it will not affect poor citizens is shameful, as vegetable prices have risen and a hike in the fare of public transportation is demanded. The government should keep in mind the common man’s worries rather than the oil companies’ profits.

— Avishek Kumar, New Delhi

Poll droll

• The results of the Indian Express-CNN-IBN poll on the OBC reservation policy are bemusing (‘Majority favours quota’ IE, June 11). Consider the pollsters’ poser: “Do ordinary people understand this debate?” The results indicate that 58% to 64% of people do not understand it. Worse, 86% of respondents are ‘ignorant’ of the controversy. In other words, the poll indicates that well over three-fourths of the respondents do not even know what the OBC reservation issue is all about! This being the case, how do the pollsters attach any value to the same people’s responses to other queries? This exercise is as meaningless as and certainly less entertaining than the opinion polls conducted before elections.

— R.P. Subramanian, Delhi

Twin hands in till

• By returning the Office of Profit Bill seeking to exempt 56 MPs from that category the President of India has indeed taken a bold step to make Parliament see reason.

Considering the fact that politicians in India have succeeded in converting the office of president into a mere rubber stamp affixed on whatever is sent by Parliament. No one needs a crash course to understand that the main objective of politicians is to make wealth and profit and certainly not to serve the people, as much as the bureaucrats, the so-called public servants, have institutionalised corruption in India to suit the profit making endeavours of the politicians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose ken does not seem to go beyond the terms and conditions laid down by the World Bank and IMF, has no time for any serious anti-corruption drive. Or, has he?

— Abdul Ruff Colachal, New Delhi