Letters: Hope and hype

Apropos the article "Forget NaMo, it's RaGa that counts" (Lunch with BS, September 21), the response from Jairam Ramesh left much to be desired. When asked about Rahul Gandhi's reluctance to share his thoughts, Ramesh dwells on his leader's mostly party-centric actions. He attributes the looming failure of his party in the next Lok Sabha elections to the former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai and "aggressive" judiciary questioning their knowledge. His reference to the former as bhumihar from Ghazipur does not behove his reputation as a cultured politician.

He overstretches his admittedly high cognitive talent in emphasising that the Congress has moved from entitlement to rights-based strategy knowing well that they mean the same in terms of their debilitating impact on the fiscal deficit. His description of his party as one of hope and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as one of hype shows how party loyalty can blind even the brightest analysts to the reality on the ground. The distinction between the model of corruption, inflation, and poor governance, and the economic and social progress model of Gujarat gets blurred.

Y G Chouksey Pune

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