|
|
|
|
|
| HOME | NEWS | DEAR REDIFF | |||
|
COMMENTARY
|
|
|
'The legacy of Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad has degenerated into this coterie of sycophants. It's time to end this nonsense'
E-mail from readers the world over
Date:
Tue, 18 May 1999 09:39:25 +0530 Soniaji should not withdraw her resignation as her detractors want. It will make her position strong to face the stiffest political situations. It will be in the overall interest of not only the Congress but also of the nation. Khotu Singh
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 15:36:28 -0500 Sons of India spoke, in tune with Vajpayee, Advani, Mahajan, Mulayam, Mamata, Georgekaka, Chandra Shekhar, Babu, Thackeray and the several others, including Ma Jaya in her pre-pulldown avatar. It's about time the "Jaichandisque" group of opportunistic neuters in Congress, RJD and the CPI-CPM wake up and shed the 'shroud' or under the shroud ye shall rightfully go. Congratulations to Sangma, Anwar and Pawar for their outspokenness; better late than never... An NRI
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 14:45:58 -0500 I salute the three, Sharad Pawar, P Sangma and Tariq Anwar in their protests. It is a pity others are begging her to stay, it shows that these others do not have any respect or strength to go ahead without her, if she is loyal, she should campaign irrespective of anything. It will only hurt the Congress if the three leave the party. I will support them. She should have allowed Sharad Pawar to handle things from the beginning since he was the leader of the CPP. Instead, she went to the President without Sharad Pawar, thus showing her greed for the PM's post. She is a foreigner as far as I am concerned and should not be allowed any political office. Ken Menen
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 10:51:54 -0700 Great stuff! By this move, Pawar has not merely taken the wind out of the BJP's sails -- more importantly he has bowed before public opinion.
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 10:55:08 -0400 I think Mr Pawar is doing the right thing. He raised the voice of all Indians, which was not done by any Congress leader in the past. There is no country in the world which accepts foreigners as head of the nation.
Sreekanth
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 06:57:39 EDT I would like to record here my appreciation for the stand taken by Sharad Pawar and other Congress leaders. As usual I expect the Congress leaders to call them traitors and have them expelled for their stand. But I feel any educated Indian irrespective of their party affiliations would support and welcome the bold moves by these leaders. I hope these leaders succeed and this country of ours with such great heritage, and a party as old as the Congress can find better people to become its prime ministerial candidate.
Date:
Mon, 17 May 1999 17:09:54 +0800 Good that at least three Congressmen had the guts and remained "men" to raise the all important issue of Sonia trying to aim for PM. More importantly they have acted as Indians. I am no great fan of Pawar and company, nor a sympathiser with the Congress. But, just looking at the "bunch" of Congressmen who were shamelessly projecting Sonia as their "leader," as an Indian I have felt low and ashamed that Sonia needs to be discussed at a political level at all. No foreigner should be allowed to rule our motherland and Sonia is no exception. She can remain in India as our bahu. Period. Besides the foreigner issue, let us look at the following:
1. What is Sonia's commitment to Bharat?
Let us look at her away from the Indira Gandhi family? Will anyone of us touch her with a barge pole? I am sure none of us will. Then, why give her so much importance just because she had married Rajiv? Does that mean, we Indians blindly believe that anyone from the family had complete knowledge about Great Bharat and its roots? Aren't we ashamed about ourselves for being in a position to talk, discuss, send emails, discussing whether Sonia should look at PM or not? Why are we wasting precious time and money discussing these? She should be discounted from Indian politics. We Indians have a proud, rich and strong culture and heritage. Let us work towards consolidating and safeguarding it. Let the spineless Congressmen learn that Bharat should come first and not their power hungry methods or Sonia? BTW, please refrain from using Sonia's surname when you write an article about her. Just mention Sonia and I think this would be enough. Let Bharat win.
Sampathkumar Anand
Date:
Sat, 15 May 1999 14:58:55 EDT This article is total nonsense. The writer is full of hatred for the Nehru family. He writes that leaders of the Congress party have to wait to see or meet Sonia as if BJP leaders don't have to do the same thing to see or meet Vajpayee. He claims that Sonia Gandhi doesn't have any formal education. This is a lie. She has a Master's degree from Cambridge, England. How about the education of Mr Vajpayee? Nobody knows. Besides, she has a firsthand experience of politics by living in the most remarkable political family of the world. The BJP has nothing to say about its 13 month disastrous performance so they have to indulge in the character assassinations of their enemies or rivals by spreading rumours and lies and half truths. This is exactly what this writer is trying to do.
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 14:29:53 -0700 It is a sorry state of affairs when the BJP government wasted its time trading one corruption investigation for another while Sonia, Jaya, Laloo, Mulayam, Kalpnath Rai are sitting outside and enjoying the wealth of India. Now on the verge of being toppled in the election, the BJP has proceeded with the investigations. The arrest of Bhatnagar and Gopi Arora or Solanki will be equal to arresting two guys working for Coca-Cola who did not have anything to do with the actual killing of Jessica Lal. India's ruling elite always find a "Fall Guy" to take the blame while the real culprit is out free with extensive foreign bank accounts at his disposal. Shame on the ruling Congress and now the BJP for beating around the bush. Indians have always sold their soul for money on ability to migrate to a better country, or get a cushy assignment in the UN. Sonia and her family are merely playing the same game that the Mughal rulers and the British played on us. We are the most divided people on this earth, we cannot stand another Indian, we hate ourselves and forever have the passion for servitude. After Indira Gandhi, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi, our Bharat loving netas have made sure that they also steal with immunity while looking away from the Bofors scandals. In fact, the Congress of today has Pawar, Laloo, Jaya, Kalpnath Rai -- those who saw the Sikhs die in New Delhi want to be our next rulers. We should nuke ourselves as we are our biggest enemy.
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 13:19:25 -0700 Monu Nalapat's tirade against Sonia Gandhi is the stuff that tabloid journalists dream of: a pathetic, low-brow, personal attack with a poorly thought-out argument to boot. On the one hand he accuses the Nehru family of being too westernised, on the other hand his model of a "mature democracy" is lifted lock, stock and barrel from the sleaziest traditions of the Anglo-American political system. India's genius lies in blending the best of east and west, not the worst, as Mr Nalapat seems to be begging for in this article. S Roy Chowdhury
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 15:41:20 GMT Monu Nalapat, if your forefathers were not able to give you such glory that the Nehru family has, don't be jealous. At least try to give your descendants a millionth of it if you can.
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 08:51:03 -0700 (PDT) Monu Nalapat's column is very good. Please publish such articles. Naqvi
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 23:11:13 -0500 The Congress today, is a dead political entity. There was some hope in the early 90s when the party emerged from the shadow of the family for a while. But this brief resuscitation obviously failed and the corpse is back in the family graveyard. However, this time round it's time to bury the corpse and finish the sorry saga of one dynasty ruling a billion people, in a so-called democracy. If the Congress cannot find a respectable politician, who can stand on his/her own and inspire the masses, then the Congress doesn't deserve to exist anymore. The legacy of Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad has degenerated into this coterie of sycophants. It's time to end this nonsense. Shelly Mujtaba Zaidi
Date:
Sat, 15 May 1999 19:23:36 -0700 Nalapat says foreigners marrying into political families are not entitled to participate in the political process. He sites example of Greece. I can cite example of British Guiana. Dr Cheddi Jagan (of Indian origin) but a native married Janet Goldsmith an American citizen. During the 60s both the Jagans were ostracised by the Western world and Dr Jagan who had been elected as prime minister was imprisoned briefly by the British government. This was nearly 35 years back. Today Dr Jagan is dead and his American-born wife Janet is the president of what was formerly British Guiana.
N S Chandrasekher
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 11:51:27 -0400 Sonia Gandhi's lies might have been nailed in the 1980s when Parliament witnessed pandemonium. The officer who granted her voting rights might have been punished but Sonia Gandhi who gave a false statement while applying for entry in the voting list went unpunished. In fact, she was rewarded with citizenship in 1983 without asking any questions about the Gupta Committee reports. It is evident that Bina Ramani's case is not in isolation, much before her case, the mighty foreigners could do away with Indian laws with the blessings of powerful Congress politicians like Indira Gandhi. When the PM did not enforce a rule of law, how can you expect a foreigner to follow it. The citizenship battle of Sonia Gandhi is just a useful net to catch the foreigners in a legal tangle. And we welcome the use of such nets to catch infamous people who do not leave any trace of their illegal activities (read Bofors). However, even if Sonia gets out of this legal mess created by her and her mother-in-law, the most concerning issue remains intact -- if voters should hand over this nation to a foreigner whose dedication, intellectual capacity, past deeds, present thinking, helping Mr Q etc, is very suspicious? Congress spokesmen are going crazy and blurting all sorts of 'chalta hai' examples. I read in India Abroad that Ashis Nandy and other Sonia sympathisers are saying that India is ruled by foreigners for hundreds of years but it could not destroy Hinduism and the BJP was not even there at those times, so why have this fear that Sonia will destroy it. These kind of thoughts dished out to Indians imply that foreigners really did not do any harm. Hinduism survived despite years of onslaught meted out by foreign rulers because Hindu saints and sages like Adi Shankaracharya kept it alive, because our ancestors agreed for abuse rather than following the faith of the rulers. The BJP was not there but its inherent thought of "Hindutva" was alive all these years to guide our ancestors. But this does not mean we should hand over the nation again to a foreigner. It is high time, we send foreigners seeking asylum and Indian citizenship to their countries if they gang up to rule over us again.
Mukund Kute
Date:
Fri, 14 May 1999 13:25:24 -0400 The BJP is screwing up all over again. By targeting Sonia Gandhi, a Gandhi mind you, Italian or not, in its attempt to prevent the Congress from capitalising on the Gandhi's electoral presence, it is doing precisely the reverse, attracting public attention, showing itself as unsympathetic to a Gandhi widow, and in poor light as a contender for government, by having a DMK-like "anti-one-person" campaign agenda. Let Sonia be. Her absence, especially through legal recourse, would further cement Congress's strengthening Gandhi card. Just shows how poor a strategic player the BJP is.
|
||
|
HOME |
NEWS |
BUSINESS |
SPORTS |
MOVIES |
CHAT |
INFOTECH |
TRAVEL |
SINGLES BOOK SHOP | MUSIC SHOP | GIFT SHOP | HOTEL RESERVATIONS | WORLD CUP 99 EDUCATION | PERSONAL HOMEPAGES | FREE EMAIL | FEEDBACK |
||