Chidambaram's Kashmir remarks 'very irresponsible and provocative': BJP

The BJP on Monday termed as "very irresponsible and provocative" Congress leader P Chidambaram's comment that the Union government revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status because it is a Muslim-dominated state and had not done so if Hindus were in a majority there.

While Law Minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the former home minister of making a very irresponsible and provocative statement, BJP leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, also a Union minister, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Congress was giving the issue a communal angle.

Speaking at a public event in Chennai, Chidambaram slammed the BJP-led NDA government on Sunday for ending the state's special status.

"If J-K 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 alleged.

Defending the decision to revoke Article 370, Naqvi said the government has rectified a very big mistake made decades ago by the Congress.

"What he has said is an attempt to give communal colour to the issue even though the decision is in national interest," he said.

Chouhan, a former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, said it was the Congress's "narrow mindedness" that it is looking at the issue through a "Hindu-Muslim" prism.

Prasad said the decision taken by the government is in the interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and their development.

Hitting out at the Congress, he asked if it was not true that over 42,000, mostly Muslims, had died in the Valley during decades of violence.