Rajnath Singh distorting terror remarks, says Chidambaram

New Delhi: Former home minister P Chidambaram on Saturday attacked home minister Rajnath Singh accusing him of resorting to a completely distorting Hindu terror remarks to blame the former UPA government.

He said former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in the UPA regime had questioned Hindu terror in a very different context but Singh's statement was a completely diversionary argument.

Chidambaram said Shinde made a statement outside Parliament and did not use the phrase Hindu terror in the manner in which Rajnath Singh was quoting.

Read: Sushil Kumar Shinde denies having uttered ‘Hindu terrorism’ in Parliament

"What he (Shinde) was referring to was the right wing extremist groups and some of them were charged in several bomb blast cases, Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and one or two other cases.

"Many of those charged had very close links with the RSS. In fact, a few were even members of the RSS and that is all part of the chargesheet in the investigation," he said reacting to Singh's statement in Parliament accusing the UPA of weakening the fight against terrorism by use of words Hindu terror.

Read: 'Hindu terrorists' coined by UPA, weakened India's stand on terrorism, says Rajnath Singh

Chidambaram said Shinde had questioned Hindu terror but in a very different context where he was contrasting the other terrorist groups, which owed allegiance to some other religion.

"But I don't think he branded terrorism as Hindu terrorism. I think Rajnath Singh is completely distorting the statement," he said.