The BJP, which is likely to form the government, and the RSS, its parent organisation, are inseparable (“BJP plays down Rajnath, Modi’s meet with RSS,” May 12). That the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and party president Rajnath Singh met the RSS leadership recently makes it clear how a possible BJP-led government will function over the next five years.
S. Ramakrishnasayee,
Ranipet
It may be a fact that the BJP is influenced by RSS ideology, but it is also a fact that many political parties in India are “remote-controlled” by large corporate and industrial houses whose business interests are always taken care of. This is in contrast to RSS, which is not a commercial but a voluntary organisation and has played a crucial role in promoting patriotism. It also did yeoman service to society in times of calamity.
Kshirasagara Balaji Rao,
Hyderabad
Thoughts on 2014 poll
Never before in India’s electoral history has the general election been such a drag as 2014 has been. Nine-phase polling has been a bit too much which the Election Commission could have condensed to five or six phases at the most, relieving the voter and the contestant in the process of much weariness. Most unbearable has been the media’s poll blitzkrieg which has become a carnival of sorts and a revenue-generating tamasha .
One can understand the security concerns of the EC, but paramilitary forces could have been deployed in a more organised way. It is no exaggeration to say that unhealthy trends taking place electorally were/are the result of opinion polls and vox-pops on TV channels as contestants make amends for assumed losses in remaining phases. The EC must also evolve a method where parties do not leave it a helpless spectator to brazen violations and reduce the election code to a joke.
V. Sriharsha,
New Delhi
