Would have dealt with Afzal Guru hanging differently: P Chidambaram

New Delhi: Former Union finance minister and home minister P Chidambaram has sparked off a controversy over Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging. Speaking to CNN-IBN he said he might have done things differently if he was the home minister then. "I would have done things differently if I was home minister then, but since I was a part of the government it's not right to distance myself from it," he said.

Commenting on becoming home minister after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, he said "I won't say I was happy but there was a crisis so I went by the party decision. I didn't wish to go to the home ministry. I was flattered by the decision but was reluctant to leave the finance ministry."

While claiming that anti-national slogans raised at JNU was not acceptable, he also asserted that what happened there cannot be treated as sedition. "Raising slogans is unacceptable but is not sedition. In Jammu and Kashmir, pro-Pakistan slogans are often raised. But why is no action taken then," he asked.

He also alleged that there is a "massive conspiracy to bury a simple truth under mountain of lies. The government overreacted but overreaction was not unintended." He also demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should intervene in the matter and speak over the issue. "I would have expected that the PM should have make a statement," he said.

Attacking the Modi government for the state of 'rising intolerance' in the country he said that the outlook of the government has changed from development to polarisation. "We gave then enough time to settle down and frame their policies. The defining theme of 2015 is rising intolerance. The entire narrative is being changed from development to polarisation," he said.

Even as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is facing allegations of 'playing politics' over the death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemulla at Hyderabad Central University, Chidambaram backed him saying, "Position taken by Rahul Gandhi is the party position. You must judge Rahul Gandhi on the actions and conduct as the vice president of the party," he said.