•Monojit Majumdar: What is your assessment of the general elections results?

Venkaiah Naidu: The politics of the country today is not inspiring people. Ideology is being diluted, ideal behaviour does not have enough value, commitment to a particular party is seen as a weakness and ethics are being lowered. People talk about politics, think about it, debate and discuss it and disperse—in the end, they don’t do anything about it. Secondly, religion, caste and region are dominating the country’s politics which is not in the larger interest of the nation. Thirdly, opportunism is becoming the order of the day. These three things are bad for the country. Also, well-educated people are not participating in politics or casting their vote. This is affecting our system. And then there’s the media: the media is more interested in scandals, in trying to find something new rather than focusing on development, on constructive work. This is my grievance. You create a ruckus in Parliament and the next day it will be in the papers; you make a serious speech and it will be ignored.

This election is the second setback we have had. The first setback was in 2004. We had thought the NDA had done exceedingly well compared to other governments. Vajpayeeji’s government made the biggest contribution to this country’s political development map by providing linkages: air connectivity, highway connectivity, rural connectivity, rail connectivity, television connectivity, port connectivity, even political connectivity. In spite of that, we lost. This time we thought there was great unhappiness with the government, its performance and that we would be the beneficiaries because we had worked hard. But that did not happen. We lost and we humbly respect the verdict. We have the patience to sit in the Opposition for another five years, await the next opportunity. We will soon be meeting and will discuss in depth the party’s performance, the reasons for the setbacks, the shortcomings, etc.

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