Tinsel doesn’t work

• The major political parties have made a mockery of the general election by involving film stars for publi...

• The major political parties have made a mockery of the general election by involving film stars for publicity. I do not grudge film stars joining any party or propagating their views. They are as much citizens of India as anyone else and are free to join any party. But to make such a fuss, such a hulla gulla, about their entry is shameful. Why can’t parties propagate their manifestoes through the media? Why do they think people are such fools as to fall for the rhetoric of film stars? We want overall development, education, health, employment opportunities for the young, concrete measure to remove poverty, a halt to corruption in public life, a way to fight obscurantism and social evils like dowry, female foeticide, gender discrimination, and better perfect law and order so that every citizen feels secure. Tinsel cannot be a substitute.

— Tara Saxena Rewari

Senaspeak

• The Shiv Sena as usual has no better things to do than rabble-rousing (‘We’ll stop more people coming to Mumbai: Sena’, IE, March 29). I wonder Bal Thackeray’s family was before they made Mumbai their home. If the policy of restricting entry of people from outside had been followed then we would not have had the headache of fighting the discriminatory policies of the Thackeray family.

— Ashok Acharya On e-mail

Crying wolf?

• The tally for the major players in the IE-NDTV-ACN opinion poll is almost identical to that of some other opinion polls conducted recently. The Congress and other parties constituting the anti-BJP camp, calling them as “secular forces”, want to be a winner in the ballot battle merely by sloganeering about secularism and declaring war against communalism. Ironically, communalism is projected as the biggest problem for the country by these parties doesn’t find even the last place in the people’s list of problems. These parties cannot be unaware of this reality. Yet they continue to cry, “Wolf!”

— M.C. Joshi On e-mail

Another question

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• One question, I think, was missing in your analysis. The Gujarat riots, you have taken care of. You had asked the question whether it was bad or not and everyone suggested that it was indeed bad. But you didn’t ask whether the BJP and Narendra Modi could be blamed for these riots. If you had posed that question, you would have got a more convincing answer as to whether people will still opt for the BJP in Gujarat.

— Sanjay Gadhiya On e-mail

Who’s he kidding?

• Apropos of your report, ‘Lucky that IRMA has no Joshi, hikes fee to Rs 2 lakh’ (IE, March 9). Dr Kurien, the chairman of IRMA, says the move is absolutely okay since IRMA does not get government help. This is contrary to the reality. Several years back, when I was a member of the Parliamentary Agriculture Committee, I know that the National Dairy Development Board had given IRMA assistance worth several crores, apart from a corpus of Rs 10 crore. Also, the Gujarat government gave 60 acres of prime land belonging to the Gujarat Agriculture University on a token lease for 99 years to house IRMA. Does all this not amount to government assistance? The Central HRD Ministry should call Dr Kurien’s bluff.

— Haroon Rashid Delhi