Prashant Kishor wants the Congress to project either Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate in UP. The Gandhis are far too arrogant to accept a provincial role, says Aakar Patel.

'The tax avoidance in India is done as much by the wealthy as the lower class.' 'There is no difference in ethics and culture and morality, and no difference in tax-paying behaviour between various Indian classes, whether educated or not,' says Aakar Patel.

'It doesn't really matter ultimately what individual commentators say or write about Modi. So long as he continues the BJP's march towards greater vote share, a bigger geographic spread and a crushing of the Congress, he is a success,' says Aakar Patel.

'I did not bother to collect my diploma certificate because the course was a waste of time and more or less useless. It would be instructive for me to describe it because manufacturing is seen as the way out for India's great unemployment problem. It is? I do not think so,' says Aakar Patel.

It seems the Congress just does not have the energy and vitality to break through even in the states where it has a ground presence and the wind of anti-incumbency on its back, says Aakar Patel.

'Our priority cannot be better cities. Since real change is not possible, we must satisfy ourselves with a change in name,' says Aakar Patel.

'Its three primary effects are to send the alcohol economy underground (depriving the state of revenue), to criminalise the casual drinker and to criminalise the police,' says Aakar Patel.

'He was carrying his Indian passport. This seems like a very different sort of spy than the ones we see in movies, who carry fake passports and are highly trained,' says Aakar Patel.

'The idea of moral responsibility is not particularly strong in our parts. Showing that people are corrupt or immoral through stings doesn't have the required effect in such a culture,' says Aakar Patel.

'Our great Indian nationalists are rousing passions against their own people, not against another nation. Our fraud nationalists go after their own citizens for their religion, or for their views. Their concern and their passion is the enemy within. That is not love of nation or love of anything else. It is hatred and it is bitterness,' says Aakar Patel.

'We in the Anglicised middle class are unconcerned about the vast majority of Indians. We insist on only our concerns and anxieties being debated. All other Indians are irrelevant,' says Aakar Patel.

'Sexual violence against women is not something unique to India but in our parts the victim must also have to contend with other burdens. Such as the notion of 'honour' and its loss,' says Aakar Patel.

'In Bastar, as in Delhi, being branded 'anti-national' in the eyes of the government now seems to have acquired new meaning,' says Aakar Patel.

'Our passionate love for our nation as seen in our anger at slogan shouters does not extend to caring for the nation in other ways. We are one of the dirtiest people on earth and even our holiest river the Ganga can only be cleaned if the Supreme Court orders it, and even then with difficulty,' says Aakar Patel.

Why are Dalits protesting against hangings in Hyderabad? Why is the focus on Muslims in JNU? Why are the students insisting on representation from marginalised communities when they are being judged by a committee? The fact is that India reserves the death penalty mostly for Dalits and Muslims, says Aakar Patel.

'Which one of us would give up our flats for development?' 'We insist that others, who are unwilling but weak, make all the sacrifices on our behalf and then we are puzzled when there is violence against the State,' says Aakar Patel.

'In the medium term, the advantage is still with the BJP.' 'One reason for this is Shah's talent. He is a terrific organiser and builds his strategies around the grassroots worker,' says Aakar Patel.

'The corporate world and the private sector economy take notice of the monstrous and apartheid like division that exists in our offices. The jobs we so casually take for granted in the upper class have come to us on the back of denial to others,' says Aakar Patel.

'The most important issue for Indians, the only way in which to get them quickly out of poverty, is sustained high growth.' 'If we are not doing that despite a strong government and a leader with clarity of vision and purpose, we are facing big trouble.'

'In our media and general population the idea of 'strong posture' was successfully sold by Modi. This is now a liability for him, as he has discovered,' says Aakar Patel.