Over to people

The real game

• The media is doing well to bring out into the open the real interests of the legislators who are vociferously opposing the clean-up drive in Delhi. Now one knows just why action hadn’t been possible till now. It’s good the judiciary has stepped in to spoil their game.

— Avijit Sharma Delhi

Plain speak

• This refers to your editorial ‘Congress’s software’ (IE, December 30). It is something unusual in the secular media to so bluntly accuse a government run by the secularists of playing politics of Muslim vote-bank even in dealing with terrorism. For long, attacks by Islamic terrorist outfits were linked to the Kashmir dispute, government’s wrong policies and atrocities of security forces in Kashmir, Babri demolition and Gujarat riots. The dastardly attack on the IISc campus in Bangalore has demolished that myth. After playing havoc with the people and places of India, it now seems to be the turn of vital installations, reputed institutions and the bubbling economy of India.

— M.C. Joshi Lucknow

What, Speaker?

• It was shocking to read the statement of the Speaker of Lok Sabha, Somnath
Chatterjee, on the matter of the expelled MPs. Reportedly he has said that the MPs who are accused of taking bribes on camera can return to Parliament if re-elected in the ensuing by-polls. This is untenable. How can a parliamentarian who is disqualified for indulging in corruption in the first place, be permitted to re-enter Parliament just because he manages an electoral victory? How could the Honourable Speaker be sure that the MPs who have been seen by the nation to take bribes, will mend their ways after they contest the by-polls and get re-elected?

— G.R. Vora Mumbai

Sad state

• That the Left parties should have a say in the selection process of the Indian cricket team points to a sorry state of affairs. Especially because Sourav Ganguly is a good enough player to make his way back into the national team on his own — he certainly doesn’t need anyone’s good offices. It is a sad and telling commentary on our times that a player like him should be indebted to a politician for his place in the team.

— Rajarshi Dutta New Delhi

Unfair, still

• Apropos of ‘Howzzat for identity?’ (IE, December 30), I am a Bengali and I have many friends from South India and many who are Christian too, who agree that the treatment meted out to Sourav Ganguly was unfair. There is no reason to serve up conspiracy theories along regional and religious lines.

— Nujra Kolkata