Letters to the editor

I BEG to differ with Vandita Mishra’s ‘Script to fit the role’ Is it for the first time that UP has a one party majority rule? No. From the days of Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, UP was ruled...

Not really different

• I BEG to differ with Vandita Mishra’s ‘Script to fit the role’ (IE, May 14). Is it for the first time that UP has a one party majority rule? No. From the days of Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, UP was ruled by the Congress with absolute

majority. The Congress, in its arrogance, did not take note of the feelings of large sections of the people. It paid for that and is now marginalised. Mayawati has become UP’s chief minister for the third time. How is she different from Jayalalithaa? How is she different from any other

Story continues below this ad

Indian politician? More pertinently, why do you expect her to be different? After all, Mulayam Singh Yadav is waiting in the wings with his near 100 solid block of MLAs, just as Karunanidhi was in Tamil Nadu, who

unseated Jayalalithaa. Mayawati has cleverly played the caste card, promising the economically backward brahmin class

the same benefits of reservation of jobs as to socially backward class. Time will tell whether she can translate that promise into concrete action, without endangering her own core base: the dalits. The same will apply to the poor among the Muslims. If she can keep that promise,

then and only then she can create history in our country that no other party has so far done.

— Parimal Y. Mehta, Vadodara

All talk

Story continues below this ad

• MANMOHAN SINGH’S comments on Rahul Gandhi’s future just before the UP assembly elections were rather prophetic. The Congress in a shambles in UP and managing just 21 seats, which if it is Rahul Gandhi’s future tells a sad story. Immediately after the results of the elections, the Congress managers got into damage control mode so that the fair face of Rahul Gandhi was not sullied.

So they blamed the Congress party organisation

in UP. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party should remember that Mayawati won almost 10 times the number of seats as the Congress, but with much less bluff and bluster.

— S. Kamat, Alto Betim, Goa

Comfortable ending?

• WHEN an earthquake struck the special prison, Bhuj, in January 2001, reducing it to rubbles, some 25 inmates did not flee to freedom, saying “inside the jail we get free boarding, with quality food, besides free medical facilities and personal safety, whereas, outside the jail, we have to work hard to get one square meal”. It is a sad commentary that the state provides to prisoners comparatively better comfort zone inside the jails, at the cost of

tax-payers who have to slog it over, outside.

— M.S. Rajagopalan, Ahmedabad