In a fiery intervention during a Rajya Sabha debate on Operation Sindoor, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday delivered a powerful rebuttal to the Congress party’s past attempts to propagate the notion of “Hindu terrorism,” asserting firmly that no Hindu can ever be a terrorist.
“Who started talking about Hindu terrorism? I can proudly say before the people of the country that no Hindu can ever be a terrorist,” Shah declared in the Upper House, launching a stinging attack on the Congress for what he described as the deliberate fabrication of the “saffron terror” thesis. He said the opposition party of maligning the majority community as part of a calculated political strategy rooted in vote bank politics and appeasement.
Shah reminded the House of a disturbing episode from India’s counter-terrorism history, where certain Congress leaders attempted to falsely attribute the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to Hindutva groups. “They tried to give terrorism a religious colour for the sake of votes, but people of India rejected that falsehood,” Shah said, naming Congress leader Digvijaya Singh as one of the chief architects of this misinformation campaign.
Recounting the consequences of this politically motivated narrative, Shah said, “All this was done for political gain. Innocent people were jailed, tortured, and defamed, not in pursuit of justice, but to build a story that served electoral purposes.” Though he refrained from naming all those involved, the implications of his statements pointed directly at senior Congress leadership.
The debate turned particularly sharp when Shah responded to Congress leader P. Chidambaram, who had questioned the legitimacy and timing of Operation Sindoor. Chidambaram reportedly raised doubts over whether the neutralised terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack were indeed from Pakistan. Reacting strongly, Shah asked, “Today, I have to ask him, whom was he trying to protect? Pakistan? Lashkar-e-Taiba? Or the terrorists themselves? Don’t you have any shame?”
Shah added that “by the grace of God,” the three terrorists were killed on the same day Chidambaram raised these questions in Parliament, almost as if to deliver poetic justice. The home minister further said the Congress of having no moral authority to question the BJP on terrorism, stating, “The reason for the spread of terrorism in the country is the Congress’s vote bank and politics of appeasement.”
The Congress’s discomfort during the debate was evident when senior leader Prithviraj Chavan criticised the BJP-led government for allegedly naming counter-terror operations with religious undertones. Responding to this, Shah defended the government’s actions, stating, “The Congress does not understand that ‘Har Har Mahadev’ is not just a religious slogan… They see everything through a Hindu-Muslim angle.”
As the debate broadened to include the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, Shah highlighted the significant progress made under the current regime. “There was a time when Pakistan didn’t even need to send terrorists. Our own youth were being radicalised,” Shah noted. “But in the last six months, not a single Kashmiri youth has picked up a gun. All those being eliminated now are Pakistanis.”
Shah underscored this dramatic shift, stating, “Terrorist groups have not been able to enlist a single local youth in the last six months.” He credited this to growing faith in democratic processes and the government’s tough stance on terrorism.
Touching upon the electoral history of Jammu & Kashmir, Shah made a shocking revelation: “Elections in J&K were routinely rigged. One senior security officer told me that his main job during the polls was not to ensure safety but to stuff ballots.” He said that recent elections in the region were the fairest the state had seen, and that trust in the process has sparked a significant shift in public sentiment.
Referring to the widespread condemnation of the Pahalgam terror attack, Shah said, “There was not a single village where processions were not taken out against the killings of tourists at Pahalgam.”
Shah delivered a stern warning to Pakistan: “There will be no dialogue until terrorism ends. We stopped only after they pleaded for a ceasefire, when they were on their knees.”
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