Opinion Chalk & cheese
In Bengals Nitish?,Saubhik Chakrabarti draws an interesting comparison.
In Bengals Nitish? (IE,January 4),Saubhik Chakrabarti draws an interesting comparison. While Nitish battled caste,Mamata is up against class. Mamata is pitted against a deeply indoctrinated cadre that never had any pretensions of scripting growth for Bengal,but Nitish is backed by the aam aadmi,eager to be a part of the success story. Herein lies the difference. For the Trinamool to be understood in todays Bengal,its opening argument had to be violence. Mamata has an uphill task of overriding a decade of civil disconnect and deteriorating affairs in Bengal. Till education,skills and jobs return to Bengal in a big way,the state will remain confused. Nitish is a placid person even in the worst of times,Mamata a fiery specimen any day. It would be interesting to see how she holds both the state and her temper.
R. Narayanan
Ghaziabad
Role reversals
POLITICS and politicians never fail to confound us. L.K. Advani says Sanjay Gandhi is being made a scapegoat by the Congress for its excesses during the Emergency (Gandhi vs Gandhi, IE,January 4). Even Indira Gandhi and Sanjay would be amused. The Congress is trying to prove Indira was helpless before her sons nefarious ambitions; the opposition is at pains to show that Sanjay was just being a dutiful son. We are seeing history being tampered with and,ironically,by the main characters of the drama.
Anil P. Bagarka
Question time
The finance ministers out of turn remark about the PM and the PAC is unwelcome and uncalled for (Its good to talk,IE,January 4). Such a mindset allows little or no room for putting a check on oneself. By first denying a JPC probe and then questioning the PMs offer to appear before the PAC,what message are the Congress and Pranab Mukherjee trying to convey? Does this government have no sense of remorse or responsibility? How would Mukherjee react if he were in the opposition? The PMs offer had indeed redeemed his government a bit in the eyes of the people. The post of the PM is not so sacrosanct that he will remain unanswerable even when one of his ministers causes huge revenue loss.
Ashok Goswami
Mumbai
Headline industry
Of late,Indian political parties become fodder for the media industry. Be it the BJP or the Congress,they both obligingly provide the media with sensational new headlines every week. Hence we see an obdurate B.S. Yeddyurappa gleefully defiant and continuing on his shameless way,all the while presenting a beatific smile to television cameras. For the Congress,Suresh Kalmadi continues as head of the Indian Olympic Association,even after being brutally exposed. And,of course,the 2G telecom scams grinning perpetrator,A. Raja,is now an urban legend.
Md Ziyaullah Khan
Nagpur
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