Khurshid springs to Home Minister's defence

The BJP on Friday decided to boycott Sushilkumar Shinde's public programmes and not respond to any communication from him as leader of house in the Lok Sabha over his "Hindu terrorism" and "saffron terrorism" remarks at the Congress conclave in Jaipur last month.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid feels that one can always disagree with a comment but it is not fair to reduce everything to a confrontation

"It is unfair. Sushilkumar Shinde is the Home Minister. He obviously has information and he is very seasoned. We should respect him. You can always say that you disagree but it is not fair to reduce everything to a confrontation. Both his views and that of the party (Congress) and government are very clear. We collectively as a nation have to fight terrorism of any kind," Salman Khurshid said.

He said that giving labels to terrorism will not help as there is a fear that people will try to divide the country with colour, religion, caste, community and region.

"We must not fall for labels. This is a position the party and the government has taken. Terrorism is terrorism and we must fight it,"
he added.

The BJP had held nationwide protests against Shinde's statement and its leaders had said that the party will leave no stone unturned to remove the leader from his position.

They had also demanded that the Congress president Sonia Gandhi should "apologise" for Shinde's remarks.u00a0