Congress president Rahul Gandhi could well have earned some trust had he taken a lead from the Telugu Desam Party’s well-presented no-confidence motion and talked mainly about Centre-State relations and the federal structure. Instead, his no-holds-barred attack on the government quickly ran into trouble. The piece de resistance was the tasteless hug and the wink. There was nothing to indicate the Congress’s strategy to face 2019. However, in the CWC meeting, Sonia Gandhi sounded relatively sober and practical. Ms. Gandhi realises that the Congress does not have the strength to oust the BJP on its own and thus would be more than willing to concede and cooperate with the other parties. This could perhaps be the only approach to unsettle the BJP in 2019 (Editorial, “Winning trust”, July 23).
C.V. Venugopalan,
Palakkad, Kerala
The TDP-sponsored no-confidence motion against the Modi government proved to be an exercise in futility. The Opposition thought that it would have a field day in pinning down the government on issues such as cow vigilantism, other lynchings, economic offences, tardy job growth, GST woes and levies on petrol and diesel, and the slow growth of exports. There was absolutely no need for a no-confidence motion to discuss these issues. A well-conducted parliamentary session with some give and take would have ensured that all these serious issues could have been discussed threadbare.
Nagarajamani M.V,
Hyderabad
