Two ideas of India

July 24, 2017 11:45 pm | Updated 11:45 pm IST

Peter Ronald deSouza has called attention to the real significance of the vice presidential contest by sensitising readers to “the richer model of politics, where ethics, pragmatics, and symbolism all combined, in their best moments, to give our politics a superior quality”. It would be cynical to disregard this thin strand of wisdom that has held together this vision of India these 70 years against all odds.

Seen in this light, the choice of Gopalkrishna Gandhi will send a positive message that is urgently needed (“The Vice President’s mien”, July 24).

Vasantha Surya,

Noida, Uttar Pradesh

The push for a consensus candidate for the post of vice president would have had merits and much relevance had the Opposition been ready to support the unanimous election of Ram Nath Kovind as President. If that was the case, the NDA would have been under some sort of pressure to go in for a consensus candidate for the office of vice president. The Opposition’s naming of Meira Kumar as their candidate for president was a clear case of caste politics even though they painted it a case of “fighting for ideologies”. It should be remembered that even though Gopalkrishna Gandhi was intially in the mind of the Opposition as a candidate for president, he went out of reckoning following the NDA’s selection of Mr. Kovind as its candidate.

M. Venkaiah Naidu may be a party loyalist but that should in no way prevent him from becoming an effective vice president. At the same time, I have no hesitation to say that Mr. Gandhi eminently qualifies for any high constitutional post in the country. The writer’s concluding remark — “57 MPs from Tamil Nadu and 37 MPs from Gujarat have to decide on a candidate who is the grandson of both Rajaji and Gandhiji” — amounts to obliquely playing the regional card and bringing in regional sentiments into play as we all know that Rajaji’s home State is Tamil Nadu while that of Gandhiji’s is Gujarat. The very remark itself erodes the value and lustre of his argument that “the contest is between two ideas of India, between the politics of vision and that of power play”. The crux of the matter is that the NDA and the Opposition wanted magnanimity from the other side while both of them were not at all willing to be magnanimous. It was simply a question of who would blink first.

C.G. Kuriakose,

Kothamangalam, Kerala

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