Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why the UPA lost in the general elections, the decline of the Left and what he expects from the Centre.
'From the time Rahul Gandhi entered the scene, I started feeling dissatisfied. No true Congressman will be able to agree with the way Rahul Gandhi functioned. He has not attained enough maturity or wisdom.' 'You cannot compare Rahul Gandhi with Narendra Modi. When you take into consideration Modi's political experience and abilities, nobody can think of projecting Rahul Gandhi against him.' 'The main culprits behind such a humiliating defeat are Veerappa Moily and P Chidambaram. It was Moily who did the maximum damage to people and the party.' T H Mustafa, one of the first Congress leaders to criticise Rahul Gandhi, speaks out in this interview to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
'The Congress has become two distinct parties, one of the durbar, the other of the field and if they keep drifting apart, death is a certainty,' says Shekhar Gupta.
In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, thousands of people bid an emotional farewell to former President APJ Abdul Kalam who was on Thursday laid to rest with full state honours in his home town here amid chants of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".
The media in Kerala seems obsessed with women and sex, says Shobha Warrier.
'The Congress's allies won't be left behind in looking out for their own interests. Some will demand a bigger share of the ministerial or electoral pie, others will simply jump ship,' says T V R Shenoy.
'How can anyone ask me to stop what I have been doing since I was 6?'
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
Rampant corruption by Congress ministers must be counted as the single biggest factor to prompt the electorate to hand over a thumping mandate to the Communist parties, says M K Bhadrakumar.
'In the 30 years since the Ayodhya movement began, the RSS has created a generation of Hindus who are the mirror image of those fanatic Muslims who take to the streets at the slightest, even imagined, 'insult to Islam,' argues Jyoti Punwani.
'Why would the Communists do this? I have three possible answers: One, they are specifically opposed to the Global Education Meet that the ambassador organised. Two, they are beginning to realise their days are numbered in Kerala. Three, the standard modus operandi of leftists is anarchism because they are not constrained by any codes of ethics. Roughly, the bad, the good, and the ugly,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Nowhere in the country, except perhaps Jammu and Kashmir, do extremist groups enjoy political patronage as they do in Kerala. Terrorists are exported from Kerala to Afghanistan, Syria.'
Kerala is one state where the Congress may do well in the general election and it where Rahul Gandhi has demonstrated why he is serious about rebuilding his party, says T V R Shenoy.
'People are losing their freedom to eat, speak, write and practise their religion.' 'All that is said in the Constitution has been taken away.' 'Does every Muslim or Christian or Hindu have to say I am a patriot every morning and repeat it in the afternoon and at night?'
State after state has imposed an alcohol ban, and has had to retreat, unable to address the financial and administrative fallout. Are we set for more of this cycle, asks Aditi Phadnis.
B S Gnanadesikan, who resigned as Tamil Nadu state Congress chief, tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com what is wrong with the party in the state.
While the state's decision to take the road to Prohibition has been given a communal twist, there are several political imperatives of the move
Amma will wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'honeymoon' with the voter to fade away before deciding on the issues that are of real concern to the state and others that may need a considered and balanced solution, say N Sathiya Moorthy and M Kasinathan
'My wife was asked to get out of an autorickshaw because she was married to me. My children were targeted and branded a traitor's children. In spite of the Supreme Court and the NHRC having cleared my case, the state government is yet to close it. Local politicians are behind this. Why can't they close the case, give me compensation, accepting gracefully that they have wronged me?' Dr S Nambi Narayanan, the scientist who was accused and then exonerated in the 1994 ISRO spying case, speaks to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier about his continuing travails and his recent meeting with Narendra Modi.
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