Monkey business
Sir — Lankans are no strangers to the wrath of a monkey. After all, who can forget that in the Ramayana, Hanuman was believed to have set all of Lanka ablaze with his tail. Modern-day Sri Lanka, too, seems to have fallen prey to a monkey’s antics. A countrywide power outage in the island nation has been blamed on a monkey that climbed into a power station south of Colombo. But just like the mythical counterpart of this 21st-century simian, the monkey was not acting without provocation. Largescale encroachment on the habitat of monkeys in Sri Lanka causes them to venture into human territory in search of food. The lack of neutering initiatives by the civic authorities adds to the problem by swelling the simian population.
Bikram Jana, Calcutta
Bitter defeat
Sir — The Delhi assembly election was largely centred around issues like air quality, cleaning of the Yamuna, and freebies. The Bharatiya Janata Party swayed voters, particularly the working and the middle classes, with the tax exemptions provided in the Union budget and the promise of freebies along the lines of those provided by the Aam Aadmi Party. Among the reasons responsible for the AAP’s defeat is its silence on the 2020 Delhi riots, alienating minorities. The party’s besmirched image owing to allegations of financial irregularities against its leaders also cost the AAP. The Congress will also find it hard to recover from this failure. The INDIA coalition is a divided house.
Aayman Anwar Ali, Calcutta
Sir — Victory in the Delhi assembly polls must have tasted doubly sweet to the BJP as it not only trounced the AAP in its bastion but also managed to defeat the former chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. The BJP’s next aim is surely to defeat the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, after which its next target would be M.K. Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
Jayanthy Subramaniam, Mumbai
Sir — The AAP could not cleanse Delhi of corruption in its decade in government in spite of coming to power by promising exactly that. Now that the BJP has won the Delhi assembly polls, it is hoped that it does a better job of removing corruption.
M.C. Vijay Shankar, Chennai
Sir — The widening rift between the AAP and the Congress is the primary reason for the Grand Old Party’s debacle in the recent elections. Had the two parties aligned themselves and contested the polls together, both parties would have benefitted. AAP leaders who lost the polls by a small margin — Manish Sisodia is one of them — would have won with the support of the Congress. By winning 48 seats, the BJP has made a historic comeback to the capital.
S. Sankaranarayanan, Chennai
Sir — The AAP’s failure to win a majority in the Delhi polls was certainly a shock. The BJP’s huge margin of victory could not have been predicted either. But the Congress’s performance was no surprise as it has fared poorly thrice in a row now. The INDIA bloc allies’ decision to fight the elections separately further derailed the AAP’s campaign in the national capital.
M.R. Jayanthi Ramani, Navi Mumbai
Sir — For the first time since contesting the Delhi assembly polls, the AAP has lost poorly from its bastion. The party’s actions led to its defeat. Delhi was the fulcrum from where the AAP ventured into new territories like Punjab, Gujarat and Goa. Arvind Kejriwal will now have to ensure that he insulates AAP’s Punjab unit from the cascading effect of this loss. The Congress’s consistently poor performance is disappointing.
Bal Govind, Noida
Sir — The BJP’s win in the Delhi elections after 27 years is remarkable. It is a decisive mandate. The INDIA grouping is fractured by in-fighting among its members. The Delhi election results should act as a wake-up call for INDIA. Cleaning Delhi’s air and the Yamuna must be the highest priorities for the new government, besides employment generation and arresting inflation.
Sravana Ramachandran, Chennai
Sir — After the AAP’s defeat in the recent Delhi assembly elections, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, declared that “Delhi has been freed from AAPda.” Anti-incumbency, corruption allegations, charges of sexual assault by the AAP member, Swati Maliwal, are some of the predominant factors behind this debacle. In addition to these, environmental concerns like the degradation of the Yamuna and the Delhi Ridge and rising air pollution may have swayed the voters in the capital.
Prasun Kumar Dutta, West Midnapore
Sir — The Delhi election results are a textbook example of how a fractured Opposition clears the path for a dominant victory for the BJP. Had the Congress and the AAP combined forces strategically, the outcome would have been different. If Opposition unity is merely a slogan that is not backed by actionable strategy, history will keep repeating itself and all of India will soon turn saffron. Parties in the Opposition should get together regularly to strategise like they did before the Lok Sabha polls.
Gopalaswamy J., Chennai
Sir — The disunity in the INDIA bloc has allowed the BJP to sweep the Delhi elections.
A.P. Thiruvadi, Chennai
Freedom at risk
Sir — The seizure of mobile phones from journalists investigating the leak of a rape FIR at Anna University is unjust and potentially illegal. The Supreme Court has already stressed the need for proper guidelines on such seizures, which threaten privacy and press freedom. This must not be condoned.
Jijee Lee John, Calcutta
