Venkaiah Naidu slams Chidambaram over Kashmir comments

Hyderabad, Feb 25 (Maxim News): Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today criticised former Home Minister P Chidambaram over his comments on Kashmir and sought to know the Congress’ stand on the issue.

“He knows about the fragile situation in Kashmir as he has also served as the Home Minister of the country. It is wrong to make such statements and is not in the best interest of the country. We condemn this statement,” Naidu said.

“We want to ask Congress Party what is their stand on Kashmir?” he asked.

Taking a jibe at former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, Naidu said after losing power in the state, Abdullah had changed his ‘tone and tune’. Naidu criticised the former chief minister of being hypocritical and opportunistic in his criticism towards the centre. He said, “Its opportunistic double talk”.

It is to mention here that at an event in Hyderabad yesterday, Chidambaram had reportedly told the reporters he had a sinking feeling that Kashmir was nearly lost for India because the central government used brute force to quell dissent there. Manthan is a public discourse platform.

Chidambaram further added that he feared the situation would worsen if the BJP-lead NDA government did not make a course correction in framing their policies for Kashmir, the same ways the Cabinet Committee on security did, back in 2010.

In the press conference, Chidambaram also claimed that seven million people of Kashmir valley felt alienated by the ”oppressive methods” of the Indian government, which was a “terrible” mistake. He also said that the statement by Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat that anyone who interfered with defence operations in Kashimr would be treated as anti-national was the last straw.