Letters: Speech therapy

This refers to the editorial "The wrong speeches" (October 29). Speeches have lost relevance in terms of a party laying out its vision for the nation .The Nehruvian era of thoughtful speeches is lost to history. Today, speeches are vote bank-centric and for vituperative purposes. The nation is taken for granted by every leader without exception. No wonder, then, that Narendra Modi had to recognise that minorities just can't be wished out of electoral calculus. His development theme can tug at the mind but not the hearts that have been traditionally nurtured in secular ethos. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with its one-point anti-corruption pitch, could be the exact opposite. Its fledgling stature cannot accommodate a larger canvas. The Congress is geriatric. Of course, the regional parties gaining momentum in a political vacuum of sorts, remain narrow opportunists and their speeches are worn on the sleeve and tailored to an occasion. They sanely opt to remain a puzzle till the very end. In this context, Modi's softened stance in his recent speech is no internal awakening. This will not give the Bharatiya Janata Party a side entrance to the minority vote bank nor a pre-election embrace from regional satraps, but could, at best, help him in his quest for a pan-India profile. After all, Modi, too, is a debut runner in the Delhi marathon 2014·

R Narayanan Ghaziabad

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