Former Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's remarks on Jammu and Kashmir at a book launch event on Tuesday has snowballed into a major political row with the BJP latching on to it to attack the UPA regime prior to 2014.
Shinde's memoir Five Decades in Politics which as the name suggests, lays bare the politician's journey over 50 years and touches upon many controversies but the saffron party on Tuesday picked his remark on Jammu and Kashmir to attack the Opposition.
Shinde had said that he was scared while visiting Lal Chowk in Jammu and Kashmir when he was the Union Home Minister.
"Before I became the Home Minister, I visited him (educationist Vijay Dhar). I used to ask him for advice. He advised me to not roam around but to visit Lal Chowk (in Srinagar), meet people and go around Dal Lake," Shinde was quoted by news agency ANI.
"That advice gave me publicity and people thought that I am not scared to move around the area but I was very scared," he said. He, however, later added that he made the statement to make the audience laugh.
Shinde became the Home Minister in 2012.
Reacting to his remarks, the BJP made snide remarks at the Congress, saying that now the security of the country is "so strong under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership that even the opposition leaders play with snow in Kashmir without any fear".
BJP leader Anurag Thakur also reacted to the remarks by Shinde, saying that this shows the condition of Jammu and Kashmir during Congress rule. "Terrorism, separatism and stone pelters were in full swing. If the then Home Minister was scared to go to Lal Chowk, you can imagine what condition it was in. Congress aafat laati hai, hum rahat laate hain. (Congress brings trouble, we bring peace)."