It’s time to deliver now

With a whopping 92 of the 117 Assembly seats falling into AAP's lap, its chief Arvind Kejriwal now carries the onerous responsibility of not only putting Punjab back on the track of prosperity but also provide the clean governance, soon after the CM designate Bhagwant Mann assumes the charge.

This key border State desperately needs an astute and innovative action plan to effectively deal with its longstanding problems related to drugs, the sagging healthcare, rampant unemployment, among several others.

Needless to say, the assumption of 'power' implies the proper delivery of various pre-poll promises too. One hopes the first ever AAP government is Punjab proves its credentials on the ground.

Kumar Gupt

Panchkula (Haryana)

Sustainable welfare

Apropos the election results as analysed in the editorial ‘Resounding victory’ (March 11), a key takeaway is that welfarism is here to stay. And it is not a bad thing. There is a need to differentiate between sustainable welfare and populist doles. Measures such as building toilets, assisting house purchase, medical insurance, and subsidised farm inputs, all targeted towards the needy and ensuring leakage-free delivery through direct benefit transfers will benefit the economically weaker sections of society.

On the other hand, doles such as free water and free power for everyone amount to squandering taxpayers’ money and are simply unsustainable. For example, many of our metro cities are rapidly running out of water and the need is to use resources frugally. Thoughtless freebies will be counter productive.

V Vijaykumar

Pune

Electoral maneuvering

Apropos the editorial 'Resounding victory' (March 11), it was interesting to observe the further decimation of the grand old party with an unimginable loss of its last bastions in Punjab alongside the emergence of new trends and adoption of some well articulated poll strategies in India’s political landscape.

What else could explain the BJP actually improving its vote share in Uttar Pradesh (from 39.7 per cent in 2017 to over 41 per cent now), Manipur (from 36.2 per cent to nearly 38 per cent) and Goa (32.5 per cent to over 33 per cent), while slipping slightly in Uttarakhand and yet defeating the Congress convincingly?

However, notwithstanding the AAP putting up some poor show in UP, Uttarakhand and Goa, its landslide victory in Punjab has convincingly 'outsmarted' all key political parties namely the Congress, SAD, BSP and BJP (though not in race from day one) as also newly formed Punjab Lok Congress led by Captain Amrinder Singh, the former CM of Punjab (an ally of the BJP), who himself failed to win from Patiala.

Significantly, buoyed by its such a resounding victory, the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has now reportedly set his 'eyes' on i Haryana and Gujarat. However, it may be too early to anticipate or visualise his future political prospects in the twin BJP ruled States.

SK Gupta

New Delhi

Fertiliser worries

Such is the interconnectedness of the world, that an Indian farmer is adversely affected by the war in distant Ukraine. It would come as no surprise if most of the farmers were not even aware of the country’s existence.

The shortage of fertilisers will add further misery to the already beleaguered farmers. The international shortage of food would have given the farmer better prices for his product. But with fertiliser shortages this opportunity is likely to be missed.

Developed nations do not favour fertiliser production because of environmental concerns. Therefore one has to depend on Russia. There's little the government can do about it except regulate sale of fertiliser. So there is more pain in store not only for the famers but also consumers.

Anthony Henriques

Mumbai

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