Letters to the editor

LoC in UP• IT is nobody’s argument that Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government is legally untainted (‘Overkill on Uttar Prades...

LoC in UP

• IT is nobody’s argument that Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government is legally untainted (‘Overkill on Uttar Pradesh’, IE, February 26). But the UPA government has missed the target when it crossed the line of control. Now the matter of imposing President’s rule has suffered at the hands of petty politics. Had Sonia Gandhi acted swiftly, after consulting her allies, and imposed President’s rule just after the Supreme Court judgment, keeping Mulayam Singh on as caretaker CM, it would have been quite an appropriate step. This would have ended the tenure of an illegally constituted government, and would have sent a message that the Centre is not keen to topple Mulayam Singh Yadav. But it seems that the Congress, after remaining away from power for just one term, has lost its political courage.

— Naval Langa, Ahmedabad

• JAYANTHI NATARAJAN’S argument applies equally to the UPA in general and to the Congress in particular. It is wrong to say that there is any sympathetic outrage over the imposition of President’s rule; because people have better sense than Natarajan perhaps has. The logic of morality that she tries to apply to Mulayam Singh Yadav applies even more to the Congress Party. Natarajan may be reminded that while you point one accusing finger at someone, the other three fingers point towards you.

— Kedarnath Aiyar, Mumbai

Leaking ship

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• WE are told by the CBI that since the papers received from Argentina were in Portuguese, there was a delay in the translation (‘Q shadow over House session’, IE, February 26). However the true story is this. The papers were first translated into Italian. But the person for whom it was done had forgotten Italian and hence it had to be redone into Hindi in the Roman script. After approval, it was again redone into Gurumukhi in the Devanagiri script. Now the reverse will have to be followed all over again. And finally the people will be told that due to international and national language protocols, the submission was delayed and the individual was let off. But of course the important task for the government is not to get the individual but to find out who leaked the story to the media. That should be easy. As the inimitable Sir Humphrey Appleby of ‘Yes Prime Minister’ fame put it — the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.

— T.R. Ramaswami, Mumbai

Bofors bag

• IT does not require great knowledge of Indian politics to realise that the Italian ‘businessman’ Ottavio Quattrocchi will again be released on technical grounds, this time by the Argentinian authorities. The CBI will find that it is too late to complete the formalities that could bring Quattrocchi to India to face the Indian judiciary. In fact, the CBI seems to have tried their best to keep the Argentinian authorities’ advice about Quattrocchi a secret until it becomes too late. But thanks to the alertness of the media and newspapers like yours, the cat is out of the bag. It is very clear that the CBI is now going through the deliberately futile exercise of getting him here — including spending tax payers’ money in sending a team to Argentina. But it is a foregone conclusion that the team will come back empty-handed, as planned. And we will hear of the cat gone with the bag.

— Sameer Kumar, New Delhi