Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Dull as the weather” (August16). Instead of being inspiring and generating hope for a better future, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day address was a dull recitation of so-called achievements of the UPA’s nine year rule. Mr Singh was significantly silent though on the UPA’s failure to control corruption and inflation and in bringing critical administrative and electoral reforms, absence of which is hitting our democratic system hard.
Both Mr Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi broke the convention of keeping the occasion free of political rhetoric. While in his address the Prime Minister attacked Mr Modi and the BJP in a veiled manner, saying there was no place for ‘narrow and sectarian ideologies’ in a modern, progressive, and secular country, Mr Modi launched an open attack on the Prime Minister in his Bhuj address, even challenging the latter to a public debate with him. BJP patriarch lK Advani was right in disapproving all of this.