Apropos your cover story Bread Lines (May 20), the two Janus-faced Union ministers, Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal, should have resigned from their posts on their own instead of waiting to be shown the door—the former immediately after the SC’s observations about his interference in the cbi’s Coalgate report, the latter after the cbi arrested his nephew for accepting money from a railway official seeking a particular post. But that’s no longer the way of ministers; and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not the sort to ask them to act in a certain way. Party president Sonia Gandhi, who insisted on their resignations, has at least made the right noise about not tolerating corruption.
M.C. Joshi, Lucknow
It’s surprising that the myth of Sonia sacrificing high office is still being paraded. Realising her limitations, what she did was choose a person to hold office who would not feather his nest. In the process, Manmohan Singh has become the fall guy for the misdeeds of the government, often resulting from party diktats, coalition ‘adharma’ and so on. He has only himself to blame for being in this unenviable situation.
N.S. Rajan, Bangalore
Believe me, the BJP will perform worse in government than the Congress. In the Congress, there is at least one command centre to follow, be it good or bad; what they have in the BJP is several factions, each with a leader of its own.
Venkat, Erode
Manmohan must be flummoxed at the ruckus around him. After all, crony capitalism (call it the neo-liberal economic paradigm, if you have a taste for window-dressing) is all about give and take.
Manish Banerjee, Calcutta
If you stick to power at all costs, for its own sake, hoping that doing nothing will save you, your edifice will crumblem and over the long term, you’ll stand exposed as pretenders. That's the ua story.
Dinesh Kumar, Chandigarh
