'Better India Not Possible Without a Better CPM, Sitaram Yechury Tells NDTV: Highlights

New Delhi: Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the CPI(M) speaks to NDTV in an exclusive interview on the show 'Towhall'.

Here are the highlights of the show:

• (On CPM walking out of the UPA) - We should have chosen an issue that had already agitated the people.
• Price rise was a better issue to break with UPA
• Still oppose Nuclear-deal, but could have chosen a more people-friendly issue
• Couldn't make people understand our view on nuclear deal
• Walked out as Nuclear-deal not part of common minimum programme
• The Congress jettisoned our support from the UPA
• (On making the party attractive to young voters) -
• Indian youth leading the world when only 20% of them go to college
• Economic policies responsible for youth not getting education and employment opportunities
• Current economic policies not letting India realise its full potential
• (On the Aam Admi Party or AAP)  -
•  AAP has not taken over class politics, but class issues
• We backed AAP in Delhi, but it lacks clarity of vision and direction
• AAP lacks clarity on economic policies and communal danger
• I admit AAP picked up our issues and conducted a much more effective campaign
• Personality-centric politics won't work for the whole of India
• Vote is for policies as far as CPM is concerned; personality's role is to project those policies
• (On whether Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi can rally the opposition against the government) -
• No adjectives for Rahul Gandhi; he's a politician and a congressman
• Nobody becomes a committed politician if he says so; it's the people who decide