NEW DELHI - 'PODA, Poda!' the angry father's shouts ordering India's oldest state chief minister to 'get out' of his home, caught on television, reverberated across the nation.

The grieving man's grouse was that Mr V.S. Achuthanandan, the 85-year-old Marxist chief minister of Kerala state, had turned up at his Bangalore home only because of media pressure to offer condolences on the death of his son, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan.

Major Sandeep, whose roots are in Kerala, was a commando in the elite National Security Guard. He died last week in Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel battling terrorists who had stormed the place.

The slain man was cremated in the southern city of Bangalore, where his parents live in retirement.

The older Mr Unnikrishnan had warned the politician not to come to Bangalore. Mr Achuthanandan ignored the advice. What's more, his security detail brought sniffer dogs to check the Unnikrishnan home ahead of the VIP arrival.

Ordered out, Mr Achuthanandan sniffed that had it not been for Major Sandeep's death, 'not even a dog would have looked at the place'. That provoked further media fury and a national outcry.

'Rather a dog visit my home than a politician,' read a banner held aloft by a woman among the thousands gathered on the seafront outside the Taj to mark the first week of the terrorist strike.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the people of India have felt a sense of hurt and anger as never before due to the Mumbai attacks.

India's political class is under the gun from a public enraged by the state's inability to protect its citizens from attacks.

Searching questions are being asked about the relevance of politicians and the penchant of many influential people to demand armed government guards as a means of showing their importance.

While politicians go around with tight security, escort cars sweeping traffic aside on the nation's roads, India as a whole has one of the lowest police-public ratios: 225 policemen for 100,000 people.

'India's people are confused and angry over the politicising of the security forces and their misuse for personal ends,' said Mr Maxwell Pereira, a former top officer in the Delhi Police, now retired, who has witnessed the misuse from close quarters.

'The anger is not only justified, in my opinion it is not enough.'

It has not helped that many leaders on both sides of the political divide have spoken and acted inappropriately in the aftermath of the attack.

Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the capital, resigned this week as did his deputy, Mr R.R. Patil.

Mr Deshmukh, who is from Dr Singh's Congress party, was seen touring the Taj with his actor son and a famous director, Ram Gopal Verma, whose movies are known to contain excessive violence.

Mr Patil said just after the attack that 'small incidents' do take place in a big city such as Mumbai.

Top opposition figures have not been spared.

Take Mr Narendra Modi, the hugely efficient chief minister of Gujarat state, adjoining Maharashtra. Mr Modi, who is from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had repeatedly attacked the head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, MrHemant Karkare, who had recently caught several Hindus involved in terror conspiracies.

But after Mr Karkare died in a hail of terrorist bullets in Mumbai last week, Mr Modi tried to give Mr Karkare's widow 1.5 million rupees (S$46,000) for her husband's bravery. She declined the offer.

BJP party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also got into trouble this week when he criticised the mounting citizen anger.

'Some women wearing lipstick and powder have taken to the streets in Mumbai and are abusing politicians, thus spreading dissatisfaction against democracy,' he said.

The BJP quickly distanced itself from his comments.

velloor@sph.com.sg