New Delhi, Aug. 27: Apprehensive of a possible fallout of the controversy surrounding the home minister, Mr P. Chidambram’s remarks relating to “saffron terrorism”, the Congress on Friday tread a middle path by claiming that terror has no colour.
Since the BJP and Shiv Sena have kicked up a row and demanded an apology from Mr Chidambaram, the AICC general secretary, Mr Janardhan Dwivedi, stepped in to do some damage control.
“As far as saffron or bhagwa or kesariya (the Hindi words for saffron), it was not an issue then. The issue was terrorism. Terrorism does not have colour. Terrorism has only one colour and that is black.”
Mr Dwivedi said, “Terrorism is terrorism and in whatever form it comes it should be opposed. Saffron colour has been part our ancient tradition and is associated with our freedom struggle. No particular section of the society has sole right on it.”
The Rajya Sabha witnessed uproarious scenes on Friday Mr Chidambaram’s statement, leading to two adjournments of the House till noon. The Shiv Sena and BJP claimed that the Congress was trying to divert the attention of people from Naxal violence and Kashmir problem.
The Shiv Sena member, Mr Manohar Joshi, raised the issue of the home minister’s statement. “There cannot be bhagwa (saffron) terrorism,” Mr Joshi said demanding that the home minister give names of people connected with terror.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman, Mr Hamid Ansari,
asked the members to allow Question Hour to proceed and called on the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Arun Jaitley, to speak on the issue.
However, Mr Jaitley could not speak as members in the ruling benches and LJP leader, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, intervened.
Mr Paswan made references to RSS’ association with terrorism which forced several BJP members to rush into the well. Seeing the pandemonium, Mr Ansari adjourned the House for 15 minutes.