India directs anger at politicians after Mumbai attacks

By Raju Gopalakrishnan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indians blazed criticism against their political leaders on Sunday after the attacks in Mumbai which killed almost 200 people, saying their bickering and ineptness was at least partly responsible.

As commandos gunned down the last of the militants, TV channels were divided between covering the operations and an outpouring of venom against both the ruling Congress party-led coalition and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"These are the people who are responsible for the system," author and columnist Shoba De, a Mumbai resident, said on one talk show.

"The city would not have suffered the way it has had it not been for the complete and total abrogation of duty and the kind of negligence we've seen, the kind of indifference we've seen."

Federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil submitted his resignation to the prime minister on Sunday because of the attacks, the Congress party said.

But that may not be enough to satisfy critics.

"Our politicians fiddle as innocents die," the Times of India said in a front-page comment.

It said while the attacks engulfed Mumbai and hundreds were held hostage, saving them took precedence.

"But today, as heaps of bodies lie in morgues ... it is time to ask our politicians, are you going back to playing politics with our lives? Or are you going to do something worthwhile with yours?"

The Congress-party government was blamed for the loopholes that allowed the heavily armed Islamist attackers to come across the seas to land in Mumbai. Others decried the Hindu nationalist BJP for seeking electoral advantage.

"There is rage," wrote a Mumbai resident in a blog published in the Indian Express. "A simmering against our so-called leaders. A simmering against the unpreparedness for this attack."

Arun Shourie, a former BJP cabinet minister, said India's growing economic prowess had masked governance problems.

"I feel that this being mesmerized by growth rate figures is actually misleading, because the tree of the state is being hollowed by termites -- the political class," he told Reuters.

National elections are due in May, and both sides of the political divide were seen using the Mumbai attacks for their own ends before state polls in Delhi on Saturday.

The BJP said in a full-page newspaper advertisement: "Brutal terror strikes at will. Weak government. Unwilling and incapable. Fight terror - Vote BJP."