I stand by remarks on PC, says Digvijay
The AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, who had raised a storm by calling the home minister P. Chidambram “intellectually arrogant”, has said that he doesn’t regret the remark and still stands by it. He also added that he simply articulated the views of the party. His criticism of Mr Chidambaram’s handling of the Maoist menace, however, was rejected by the party.
Talking to a television channel, Mr Digvijay Singh said, “I feel I did the right thing. What I have written, I stand by that and this is as per Congress policies.” Calling his criticism as a comment on a friend, he said that he even went and apologised to Mr Chidambaram.
“I made that remark and I went and apologised also that he should not feel bad about it...PC (Chidambaram) has always been calling me an opposition leader in UPA. We have been close friends and we are still close friends,” Mr Singh said.
He also said that P. Chidambaram should be more open to ideas.
Mr Singh was talking about amending Forest Act, Mining Act, Land Acquisition Act, forceful implementation of the Panchayat extension in the scheduled areas.
According to Mr Singh, he had broached the subject with Mr Chidambaram but was told to discuss with the Prime Minister. But Mr Singh had disagreed with him and told him that he was directly responsible and therefore should take a holistic view.
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Diggy, Jha in a war of words
age correspondent
BHOPAL
July 17: A war of words has broken out between the AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party president Prabhat Jha.
Mr Singh had told mediapersons in Indore earlier this week that the BJP was taking help of Naxalites during elections. Mr Jha retaliated by telling journalists at Khandwa on Friday that Mr. Singh’s “links with the naxalites” should be probed.
He said that Mr Singh was playing in the hands of the Naxalites and even went to the extent of requesting Congress president Sonia Gandhi to institute an inquiry against him.
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