There has been much criticism of Vajpayee's handling (or non-handling) of the situation in Gujarat.  When Vajpayee starts saying things like "Apne desh mein refugee ho jana, yeh dil ko cheerane wali baat hai." and that he had no face to show when he goes abroad and "Yeh pagalpan bandh hona chahiye" one day,  he also then says "The later incidents are condemnable, but who started the fire? How did the fire spread?" and "Wherever there are such Muslims, they do not wish to live together, do not want to mix and mingle with others and instead of spreading their message peacefully, they want to spread their beliefs by terror, by fear, by threatening. The world has woken to this danger." in Goa, it would be but natural to raise doubts whether he should be the Prime Minister of the country.  Unfortunately, he didn't clearly explain later that he was referring only to militant Muslims in his Goa speech.  He has only made things worse by following up with sharp words to the rest of the world "not to interfere".  Shekhar Gupta is right when he says "The counter-attack on the European Union, now even a pre-emptive assault on the Americans, the ‘‘don’t sermonise us, clean up your own act’’ tactic will only complicate matters at a time when we have actually been going out of our way to engage with the world by being the first to condemn 9/11 and to offer to join the worldwide coalition against terror. .... When we tell the Europeans, the Chinese and the Americans now to shut up and mind their own business, it only brings us contempt and derision. After embracing the idea of globalisation, no government can adopt Door hato ai duniya waalo Hindustan hamaara hai... as its theme song. If that is the idea, let’s also revert to socialism, khadi, swadeshi, equal distribution of wealth (such as there might be) and other such nonsense. "
The EU and Canada only expressed concern over what the media had reported.  There's nothing wrong with that.  UK has gone ahead and prepared an "internal report" with the words "ethnic cleansing" and "pre-planned".

The "secular" media's insistence on using words like 'majority community', 'minority community', 'provocation' etc is a real cause of wonder and confusion. Why can't they face the truth (they are supposed to be writing the truth !) and use the correct names ?  Quoting Dasu Krishnamoorthy, "Going by the headlines and reports in the press on the Godhra and Gujarat violence one finds an unflinching devotion of the press to the cause of denominational strife. When the mobs in Godhra set fire to a train carrying kar sevaks, reporters of the mainstream press were not sure who the arsonists were and therefore called them 'a group of persons,' 'a mob,' and 'unidentified persons.' Next day, when there were brutal reprisals in Ahmedabad, the newspapers found no difficulty in identifying not only the rioters but also their religion and political affiliation. USA Today, perhaps not as committed as the newspapers in India, carried this banner: 57 Killed As Muslim Mob Torches Train Of Hindus In India."

I wonder, if violence continues in Gujarat, will it be the next Punjab, Assam or Kashmir ? These are three states in  which, apparently, "militancy" was directed against the Union of India by a local "majority", now Gujarat could be the reverse.

Words like genocide have been bandied about, with all sorts of personalities ascribed to Narendra Modi.  Now there are threats that suits would be filed against Narendra Modi and even Advani and Vajpayee.
 

Narendra Modi must go because he has let loose a genie that he cannot control. Vajpayee must go because he has been the "poet without a poem" and is no longer trustworthy as the moderate face of the Sangh Parivar.  But do we want the Congress back ?  Do we ?