Despite Congress distancing itself from his views, party leader Digvijay Singh has claimed that his controversial article in a newspaper criticising home minister P Chidambaram's handling of Maoist problem reflected the party's policy.
"I feel I did the right thing. What I have written, I stand by that and this is as per Congress policies," Singh told NDTV when asked whether he stands by the views he expressed in the article about the handling of the Maoist issue.
Seeking to make light of his comment dubbing Chidambaram
as "intellectually arrogant", Singh said "I don't regret it. It is more of a comment on a friend. Don't you make a comment on your own friend?
"I made that remark and I went and apologised also that don't feel bad about it. PC (Chidambaram) has always been calling me an opposition leader in UPA. We have been close friends and we are still close friends."
Soon after the article, the AICC had distanced itself from it noting that such views needed to be articulated in party fora only.
Singh, however, said Chidambaram has to be more receptive
to ideas he was talking about like amending Forest Act, Mining
Act, Land Acquisition Act, forceful implementation of the
Panchayat extension in the scheduled areas.
Singh said these are the four pro-poor, pro-tribal issues, which should be looked at.
The AICC leader said that when he had talked to Chidambaram in this regard, the latter said "I can't handle this. You should talk to the prime minister."
Singh said he had told Chidambaram that he should take a holistic view and "you are directly responsible."
