[6] Subsequently, he joined Hindustan Times as editor, but lost his post for criticising Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.
Immediately afterwards, he contested Lok Sabha elections in 1977 from Mavelikkara in Kerala but lost.
A crusader for civil rights, Verghese has long worked on problems of development.
Waters of hope (1990) and Winning the Future (1994) discuss managing the Himalayan watershed.
He also authored Warrior of the Fourth Estate (2005), an acclaimed biography of Ramnath Goenka, owner of the Indian Express, In October 2010, he published his autobiography First Draft: Witness to Making of Modern India, which discusses the steady degradation of democratic processes during the tenures of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv.