Politics | Updated Mar 23, 2009 at 06:06pm IST

Govt hits back, says IPL loss no shame

Agencies

New Delhi: In a sharp reaction to the criticism of the Central government over the IPL issue, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday hit back at the BCCI and the BJP.

Lashing out at BJP’s criticism of the cricket tournament moving out, Chidambaram said that the IPL was a "shrewd combination of sport and business" and there was no need to politicise it.

Chidambaram also took on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who described the shifting of the IPL out of India as a "national shame".

“The most provocative comment has come expectedly from Mr Narendra Modi, saying that moving the IPL out of the country is a national shame. What is national shame? People of India think that Gujarat riots of 2002 were a national shame,” he says.

A day after the BCCI announced that the second edition of the IPL was being shifted to a foreign country because of security issues in India, Chidambaram told a press conference that while he had no comment on that decision, he had read a number of statements which obliquely criticised the Central government.

"These statements require an answer. Some unwarranted comments also deserve a rejoinder," he added.

To BJP leader Arjun Jaitley's comments that the decision will send a negative message to the world, Chidambaram said, "I know that Mr Jaitley has a penchant for exaggeration, but because he also wears the cap of the president of the DDCA he seems to have gone overboard this time".

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