In his weekly column Munnottu in party organ Deshabhimani, Nayanar has shot down the claim on the book-jacket that the novel exposes the inner games of Indian politics. According to Nayanar, what was expected to be a ferocious tiger turned out to be a tame cat. The book with countless pages was in fact ``literature with excess fat'', Nayanar has said.

Rao's novel was not an artistic depiction of the society's soul. In that sense it was a failure. The novel traced the life of the protagonist-politician Anand from his childhood to his ascension to the post of Prime Minister. In between came the Indo-China war, Indira Gandhi's ascend to Prime Ministerial gaddi, her death, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and the like. All these could naturally formpart and parcel of a good novel. However, Rao's extremely individualistic and faulty perspective of history mars the possibility, Nayanar has pointed out.