Too much of reshuffling?
SIR, The Narendra Modi government is reshuffling top bureaucracy at the drop of a hat; this has demoralised officials in all the Central ministries. It is bad practice to bring in the favourites to replace competent officers for no faults, as many of them were appointees of the UPA government. For instance, the most recent development in this realm has been the rather dramatic sacking of Sujatha Singh from the post of the foreign secretary and the appointment of S. Jaishankar to that position. The rumours about this development were floating around for quite some time. Still, when the decision actually was taken to replace Singh about seven months before the end of her tenure, it ended up sending shock waves through the complacent Indian foreign policy establishment. No doubt the Chinese and Russian speaking Jaishankar is a competent diplomat. Yet the critics of the decision have largely focused on bureaucratic niceties by suggesting Jaishankar’s appointment not only curtailed Singh’s career but also ended up blocking the career prospects of some senior Indian Foreign Service ( IFS) officers.
K.Ravi, BHUBANESWAR
What if AAP succeeds?
SIR, If one takes into account the status of AAP as a new political party, definitely it sends a strong signal of putting up a strong front before the ruling national party, BJP. Despite BJP is in power in Centre and has a nationwide emerging hold, it has taken seriously the AAP challenge in the Delhi elections, which necessitated BJP to field all its leaders, including the PM, for canvassing and motivating the Delhi public to vote for it.
If AAP happens to win this election, which actually appears to be a strong fight between the AAP and the BJP, it will boost the party’s morale in its tryst to contain and challenge BJP for all of their wrong doings. BJP has not made their position crystal clear on many issues, which the public had interest in. The issues such as corruption, Lokpal, political funding, transparency, citizen charter, black money, subsidies, statehood to Delhi, taxation policies, water, electricity, roads, slum dwellers rehabilitation, job creations and many other, generally attract the attention of the public and they believe in the merits of the propagation of AAP. BJP as a national party must make its stand clear on issues which are highlighting by AAP and there should not be any gap of communications on convictions related to nation building. Power of AAP mainly rests on its conviction of delivering good governance; that they will address people-friendly issues more effectively for the benefit of the public perhaps has emboldened them to put the political heavyweight, BJP in a not-so-comfortable spot.
Irrespective of what the pre poll surveys forecast, the fact that AAP has put up a befitting fight and are confident of forming the govt at Delhi, is in itself a kind of victory for them. But if AAP finally emerges victorious and forms government it will be very humiliating for both the BJP and Modiji .
Satyendra Jena, ORISSA
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