If today the fight is between Bihar and Assam, tomorrow it could be amongst other states or between different communities. We Indians are rightful claimants to superpower status due to our unity in diversity in a vibrant democracy. Killing one another for speaking a different language or worshipping a different god will only weaken us. Which eminently suits our enemies. While regional imbalances need to be removed, each state should not erect barriers against the other. Even if some weightage is provided in reservations for local people in jobs, the political leadership must work out the entire reservation package with sensitivity to various factors. The prime minister must take the raging sectarian violence in Assam, Bihar, and in Kashmir, seriously. He must take steps to nip the evil in the bud. — Raghubir Singh, Pune Go, Gogoi In your editorial ‘Douse the fire’ (IE, November 20) you have rightly said that due to the failure of the Tarun Gogoi government to act on time, the situation has worsened. As of now, Gogoi must take strong measures to fully control the ethnic conflict and we all hope he will succeed. Otherwise, as you said, “the Centre would have to decide how it must intervene to ensure that the situation is not allowed to reach a point of no return”. — Bidyut K. Chatterjee, Faridabad Handful of loot In Congress ruled states such as MP, Karnataka and Rajasthan, corruption and atrocities on women and dalits are rampant. Most of the Congress leaders such as Digvijay Singh, Ashok Gehlot, Ajit Jogi, S.M. Krishna and S.K. Shinde have been thoroughly exposed. You can get everything naqli in their states, including passports, stamp papers, currency notes, SC/ST certificates, and so on. Even the criminals, whom the ruling party has been patronising, cannot bail it out in these elections! In Karnataka, reportedly during one of the Lokayukta raids, the drug controller department’s collaboration in selling spurious drugs surfaced. The guilty were top officials and a minister. In some of the earlier raids, it was revealed that government hospitals did not have the necessary drugs and in some cases they were found to be spurious. Houses built for the poor have fallen apart within a year. Money meant for hostels of SCs, STs and backward students have vanished. Women and dalits have nowhere to go due to the rampant corruption in the police department. In the Congress loot raj, honest bureaucrats, the poor, dalits and women are the worst sufferers. People are coming to the conclusion: Congress ka hath, garibon ko lootnewale ka saath hai! — Ashok Kumar Prasad, Mangalore Quick, calculate The misuse of state aircraft by Sonia Gandhi is political corruption. The Indian Express should find out how many times Sonia has used aircraft for political purposes in the last 4-5 years of her political career and also calculate the cost of that travel and then lead a campaign to force Sonia to pay back tax payers’ money incurred on travel. — Geeta Yadav, On e-mail Kudos to Bhatt Apropos of ‘Why prisoners love their boss to hunger, death’ (IE, November 20), I would like to applaud the efforts of Sanjeev Bhatt for his brave efforts towards reforming the pathetic conditions in Sabarmati jail. Bravo. Keep it up. — Sanjay Nirala, On e-mail
