LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Candid confession

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remark that she does not have funds to contest the Lok Sabha polls (Inside pages, March 28) is illogical. Her comments send out a wrong signal to the country that winning an election depends largely on money. These remarks are a dent on democracy and the image of the ruling party at the Centre.

Kshirasagara Balaji Rao, Hyderabad

Ms. Sitharaman’s remarks clearly show how important being a ‘money bag’ is in India’s elections. Therefore, the common man cannot aspire to fight an election. Ganti Venkata Sudhir, Secunderabad

One can only hope that the Prime Minister has heard what his Finance Minister had to say as her comments lay bare the fact that one has to pump in crores to fight elections. No less a person than former Chief

Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan, who gave nightmares to the political fraternity during his tenure, openly admitted that he had failed miserably in enforcing the expenditure limit per candidate that he had set. In a country where one needs humongous amounts of money even to fight a municipal election, one can only imagine the amounts required to fight the mother of all elections. C.V. Aravind,

Bengaluru

It is nothing but a desperate state of commentary on the electoral scene of our country that the financial-political head of the nation has had to admit that she does not have ‘that kind of money’ to contest a major election. Her being wary of various other ‘winnability criteria’ is another point.

Seshagiri Row Karry, Hyderabad

U.S. comments

A lay person is in the dark trying to fathom why there is undue concern being evinced by the U.S. in the incarceration of Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi. Is this not an internal issue? As an observer of political happenings over much of the 92 years of my existence, I wonder what is behind America’s attention (Page 1, “India strongly objects to U.S. comments on arrest of Delhi CM”, March 28).

Mani Nataraajan,

Chennai