Speech defects

The Big Two are taking politics to a new low in campaigns

Within the low standards that characterise political campaigning in India, last week marked a new nadir by both the principal national parties and reflected poorly on their respective leaderships. From two former Congress Union ministers came remarks that blew the lid off the party’s claims to a secular and egalitarian platform and from a BJP MP an unprovoked and unsubstantiated claim against a widely respected former bureaucrat whose transformational work would have been the envy of any politician.

First up was C P Joshi, former minister for roads and railways, who upped the ante on the campaign trail in Rajasthan by