Salman Khurshid ungloves Congress's khooni panja

Senior Congress leader and former law minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday defended his remarks that his party (Congress) has "blood on its hands", saying that he made the controversial statement "as a human being".

Khurshid's candid answer to a question on his party's wrong doings vis-à-vis the Muslim community in the past has landed him in trouble.

On being asked by a young student at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on Monday as to how the Congress would absolve itself from the blood stains of Muslims, Khurshid said, "It is a political question. There is blood on our hands. I am also a part of the Congress so let me say it, we have blood on our hands.

"Is this why you are trying to tell us that if someone attacks you, we must not come forward to protect you?" "I am telling you. We are ready to show the blood on our hands so that you realise that you too must not get blood on your hands. If you attack them, you are the ones who would get stains on your hands," Khurshid said.

Khurshid added, "Learn something from our past. Learn from our history and don't create such situations for yourself where if you come back to Aligarh Muslim University after 10 years, you find no one like yourself putting out questions."

Khurshid's candid talk gave ammunition to the BJP to attack Congress for its "sins" against Muslims. The Congress quickly disassociated itself from Khurshid's remarks. Congress is still reeling under the faux pas blunders made by its leaders that Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned into advantage for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on several occasions.

Asked to explain his comments, Khurshid said he couldn't sit back when his party was being attacked. "I made the statement as a human being. If there is responsibility on any one of us, whether historical, political, social or philosophical, we must answer. We continue to do this. Have you ever known me to withdraw a statement? I'd continue to say what I said," he said.

He conveyed his unhappiness to the party for disassociating from his remarks.

"I am deeply saddened. You disassociate with a view but the view is there. If I take a view that my party is rotten then you can disassociate with it. But if I am protecting my party, if I am taking a position that anything you do to accuse my party you end up accusing me," he said.

Khurshid said he is a votary of a free play in his party among public figures on critical subjects and there should be greater faith and understanding. "To anticipate and assume that someone will make a statement that seems somewhat wrong and without checking condemning it and disassociating with it is very bad politics," he said.