Letters: Agenda for NDA, UPA

This refers to A K Bhattacharya's column "After the victory, avoid pitfalls" (New Delhi Diary, May 14). Of the three imperatives the writer has identified for the expectant Narendra Modi-led new government, the one advising it to follow a forward-looking agenda instead of launching a witch-hunt of opponents is the most significant. Modi should not repeat the mistakes of the Janata Party government in 1977, whose relentless personal vendetta against Indira Gandhi paved the way for its decline.

Modi has made many promises to the electorate - governance, development, eradicating corruption, women's empowerment and job opportunities for the youth. To achieve these goals, he should prioritise police, judicial, land and labour reforms; reinforce merit and professional expertise in the bureaucracy; and reduce political interference in the government's working - these are the generic causes of slow growth and corruption. The new government's other focus should not be on eliminating but on reducing leaks in welfare schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, so that the right beneficiaries benefit from this in the right quantity.

If the Congress wins, its agenda should be to abolish dual control, dissolve the National Advisory Council, form the Cabinet on merit and not loyalty, shift from entitlement to productivity of subsidy schemes and not interfere with the pillars of the democracy -the legislation, bureaucracy, judiciary and media.

Y G Chouksey, Pune

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