Shy about Sonia

During the special introspection session on its failure to win in Gujarat, the Congress is behaving like the five blind men and the elephant.

8226; During the special introspection session on its failure to win in Gujarat, the Congress is behaving like the five blind men and the elephant. Each is interpreting the defeat in his or her own way. But they are extremely shy of attributing any blame to Sonia Gandhi and her son, who is a political novice. The Congress is a party that considers its leader superior to the party, while for the BJP, as Narendra Modi himself has averred, no one in the party is bigger than the party. Sonia Gandhi has presided over party8217;s rout in Uttar Pradesh and has learnt no lessons from it. She adopted the same strategy in Gujarat and invited the ruination of the Congress. Any responsible leader would have owned responsibility for the defeat. Would Sonia Gandhi herself have spared a party president who cannot ensure wins? Remember what happened to Sitaram Kesri when he was president of the Congress?

8212; V. E. Venkataramani

Chennai

Majority moderate

8226; This refers to the news report, 8216;Now, Hinduvata 2.0 awaits nationwide launch8217;. Modi has won the Gujarat assembly elections on the plank of hard Hinduvata and still lost 10 seats to the Congress. If all the members of the majority community could be wooed by hard Hinduvata, the BJP would have been ruling at the Centre. It also needs to be remembered that the BJP declared L.K. Advani the prime-ministerial candidate for the next Lok Sabha polls, just to stall Modi from dreaming of the Delhi throne. Even Advani8217;s image is not likely to help the BJP-led NDA in snatching power from the UPA. The BJP-led NDA could rule at the Centre for about six years out of 60 only because of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and even then it had to keep its anti-Muslim agenda of Ram Mandir, abrogation of Article 370 and introduction of Uniform Civil Code in the back-burner.

8212; Dalip Singh Ghuman

Chandigarh

Terminator Modi

8226; In a way, Sonia Gandhi has proved prophetic when she described Narendra Modi as the 8216;messenger of death8217;. Truly, Narendra Modi proved to be a messenger of death for the Congress in Gujarat. For Sonia Gandhi, Gujarat proved to be a case of 8216;So nia, yet so far!8217;

8212; H. Parasuram

Mumbai

Badal8217;s amnesia

8226; The Punjab chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, has lost his moral right to demand any concessions from the Central government on the issue of terrorism and loans relating to it. The recent demand of Badal to treat Punjab like other terrorist-affected states is uncalled for, given the fact that a portrait of Jarnail Singh Bhinderawala has just been installed in the museum of the Golden Temple by SAD-controlled Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee. Bhinderawala was the person who had spearheaded a revolt against the nation. He had wanted Punjab to secede from the Republic and become an independent state. His movement resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives. Now when the state, especially the minority Hindu community, has recovered from the trauma of the black days of terrorism, the SGPC has vitiated the peaceful atmosphere of the state by raking up this legacy. Today, you can see hoardings of Bhinderawalal on the roads of Punjab 8212; something you did not even at the height of the terrorist phase. Instead of condemning the anti-national act of the SGPC, Badal is pushing to providing security guards and cars fitted with red beacon lights to members of the SGPC who are defying the secular norms of the state.

8212; Yogesh Dewan

Ludhiana