Congress hits back at Rajnath Singh over Hindu terror remark, says Sushil Kumar Shinde quoted out of context

New Delhi: A war of words broke between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata over Home Minister Rajnath Singh over his 'Hindu terror' remark. The Congress hit back at Singh said the Home Minister was quoting his predecessor Sushil Kumar Shinde out of context.

Shinde, too, has said that he never used the words 'Hindu terror' inside Parliament and that the reference he made to it at the Congress' Jaipur convention was withdrawn.

Senior Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "Shinde ji's remark on 'Hindu Terror' being quoted out of context. Also, he said it at party forum not Parliament."

Former finance minister P Chidambaram called Singh's statement a diversionary statement. "Sushil Kumar Shinde never made a statement in the House. He has said this at a convention in Jaipur but was not said in the term as is being used. Rajnath Singh should have confined to the Gurdaspur terror attack in his statement in the House and not brought in a statement made out of Parliament."

The BJP did not miss a chance to attack the Congress and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Singh has said nothing wrong. "The Congress party of today has not learnt from the sacrifice of Indira Gandhiji and Rajiv Gandhi. Had they learnt from it, things would not have been the same. Rajnath ji has not said anything wrong. This is vote bank politics and for this they are bringing religion into it," said Prasad while addressing a press conference.

While giving a statement in Lok Sabha over the Gurdaspur attack that took place on Monday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh trained guns at the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on its policy on terrorism.

"I would like to ask everyone to remember how a new term of Hindu terror was invented to divert the attention a few years back. Even Pakistan applauded them. The term 'Hindu terrorists' coined by previous UPA government has weakened India's stand on terrorism," he had said.

Singh had also asserted that the entire country should be united on the issue of eradicating terrorism. "Terrorism is terrorism, it has no religion, no caste. The fight against terrorism is the biggest challenge. The country should not look divided on the matter," he had said.