Shinde takes on Modi for IM comment, but trips

Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde advised BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on political speeches but slipped up when countering Modi’s charge of the CBI and Indian Mujahideen being used by the Congress against him.

Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde advised BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on political speeches but slipped up when countering Modi’s charge of the CBI and Indian Mujahideen being used by the Congress against him.

“Narendra Modi is talking in air...out of context. CBI is an independent body. It was with them (BJP) also when they were in power. Such allegations are not good,” Shinde said, responding to Modi’s charge that the Congress was using the IM and the CBI against him.

Asked about the IM, Shinde’s seemed to reject the charge but then added: “Besides, if IM would have gone by what we say, there would have been riots in the country. How it occurred to Modi that we are dictating (IM) is not known to us.”

A government official later suggested the minister meant there would not have been any riots in the country if it was up to the Congress.

Minutes earlier, Shinde had waxed eloquent how politicians should only speak within the confines of law when asked about controversial statements made by the Congress’ lead campaigner, Rahul Gandhi, and the Gujarat chief minister.

“See, one has to make such statements carefully. One should not say those things which do not come under the ambit of law,” he told reporters.

The home minister, however, refused to say if he had received any fresh information on Gandhi’s remarks about Pak’s ISI approaching victims of Muzaffarnagar riots. “I have nothing to say on this,” he said.