False promises
Sir — Indians are no strangers to politicians making false promises before the polls. So they will not be surprised by Vanita Raut, the Akhil Bhartiya Manavata Paksha candidate from Chandrapur in Maharashtra. Raut has promised to open up bars where expensive, imported whiskey and beer would be offered at subsidised prices. While Raut’s ‘guarantee’ is outlandish, it is no less misleading than the promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in every bank account that was made before the 2014 polls. Moreover, in a country where illicit alcohol is a common freebie before the polls — 8.93 lakh litres of liquor have been confiscated in Karnataka alone — such a post-poll guarantee is unlikely to lift voters’ spirits.
Ruchita Chatterjee, Calcutta
Isle of trouble
Sir — In a desperate attempt to improve its dismal performance in Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have trained its guns on the former prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, using the maritime dispute with Sri Lanka regarding the island of Katchatheevu (“Modi wades into sea for TN seat”, April 2). The senior Congress leader, P. Chidambaram, has rightly criticised this one-sided onslaught by the Centre. He has underlined a reply to a Right to Information query from 2015 to counter the false charges levelled by the BJP. Perhaps the party has had to resort to such partisan attacks because its tall promises of crores of jobs for the youth and lakhs of rupees for every citizen have fallen flat.
Asim Boral, Calcutta
Sir — During one of his electoral campaigns, Narendra Modi said that the revocation of Article 370, the scrapping of triple talaq and the construction of the Ram temple comprised a mere “trailer” of his vision for India’s development. Eyeing to cross the 400-seat mark in the Lok Sabha, Modi and his party have left no stone unturned in polarising the vote bank. But the saffron party’s hypocrisy is clear.
On the one hand, it has attacked the Nehru-Gandhi family for allegedly ceding Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka, but on the other, it has failed to adequately censure China for encroaching on Indian territory in Ladakh. Be it the Manipur conflict or the farmers’ protests, the prime minister has always maintained a stony silence on meaningful issues. Voters should keep this in mind while exercising their franchise.
Aayman Anwar Ali, Calcutta
Sir — By raking up the contentious Katchatheevu island issue at the fag end of his second tenure, the prime minister has betrayed his party’s desperation to gain a toehold in South India. He blamed the then Congress government for giving away the island to Sri Lanka in 1974, while his foreign minister chastised the “dismissive attitude” supposedly shown towards the island by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. One hopes that sanity prevails and that the prime minister does not revisit the earlier agreements with Sri Lanka. Electoral expediency should not dictate the contours of foreign policy.
S.K. Choudhury, Bengaluru
Sir — The agreement with Sri Lanka regarding Katchatheevu is another instance of the Congress putting itself above the country. Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for allowing Pakistan to occupy parts of Kashmir. A permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council was also apparently given away by him to China.
Now it seems that the Indira Gandhi-led government was instrumental in ceding Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka. The Opposition has questioned the timing of the allegations by the BJP. But it cannot be denied that the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam weakened India: the then leader of the DMK, M. Karunanidhi, had accepted the Congress government’s plan to surrender control of the pivotal island to Sri Lanka. The Opposition’s double standards have thus been exposed.
K.V. Seetharamaiah, Bengaluru
Sir — The controversy over Katchatheevu island has highlighted the prime minister’s political acumen. During the inauguration of the new Parliament building, the sengol was used as a political weapon. Modi has now chosen to drop the proverbial anchor in Palk Strait and milk the issue for votes. Only time will tell if this reaps dividends for the BJP.
Avinash Godboley, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh
Sir — It is surprising that a maritime dispute that had supposedly been settled decades ago has become a bone of contention ahead of the general elections. Perhaps the Centre cannot see the wood for the trees — making insensitive remarks on Katchatheevu may damage India’s bilateral relations with Sri Lanka. Instead of resurrecting the ghosts of the past, all political parties should focus on contemporary issues that affect common people.
D.V.G. Sankararao, Andhra Pradesh
Jobless youth
Sir — The India Employment Report 2024 is a sad reflection of the lopsided growth of our economy where jobs continue to elude a large percentage of the youth (“Unemployment bureau”, Mar 30). This is hardly sustainable. Given the evolving trends of the global economy, vocational skills must be prioritised among the youth.
Bal Govind, Noida