Congress leader P Chidambaram (PTI, file photo)

NEW DELHI: Congress leader P Chidambaram ’s comment that the government would not have ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special status if it had been a Hindu-dominated state sparked off a political row with BJP slamming the remark as “irresponsible and provocative”.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Chidambaram of being irresponsible while minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Congress leader was trying to give a communal colour to the issue.

Speaking at a public event in Chennai on Sunday, Chidambaram criticised the NDA government for ending the state’s special status. “If Jammu and Kashmir was a Hindu-dominated state, the BJP would not have done this. They did it only because the region is dominated by Muslims,” he had said.

Defending the decision to defang Article 370, Naqvi said the government had rectified a very big mistake made decades ago by Congress. “What he (Chidambaram) has said is an attempt to give a communal colour to the issue even though the decision is in national interest.”

Chouhanaccused Congress of communalising the issue and said it was the “narrow mindedness” of the opposition party which was looking at the issue through a “Hindu-Muslim” prism.

Backing Chidambaram, CPI general secretary D Raja said BJP’s “forced narrative” of Kashmir’s integration with India was “absurd” since Kashmir was always an integral part of India. “This is nothing but BJP pushing RSS ideology and fuelling Islamophobia ,” he said.

“The economy is in a mess. Even though Parliament met for the budget session, instead of discussing the state of the economy, and distress in the industrial and agrarian sectors, BJP is out to create its own false narrative to camouflage its failures,” Raja said.

