A day after Digvijaya Singh came under severe criticism from Bharatiya Janata Party for terming the Pulwama terror attack at a CRPF convoy an ‘accident’, a senior leader of the ruling party has repeated the blunder. In remarks that will put the ruling party on the backfoot, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya is seen in a video calling the terrorist attack an accident. The video, posted by news agency ANI, is dated February 21 when the leader was speaking in Rohtak, Haryana.

“Suraksha mein chuuk nahi hai,ye ek barhi durghatna hamare CRPF ke jawano ke sath gati thi.Iss sambandh mein PM ji ne bathaya hai ki sarkar ki oar se sena ko puri choot di gai hai, jo karwayi karna hai,jab karwayi karna hai vo sena karegi,” news agency quoted Maurya as saying. (This is not a security failure, it is a big accident with our CRPF Jawans. On this, PM has said that forces have been given full freedom to decide the course of action)

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As soon as the Maurya’s video surfaced, Digvijaya Singh took a jibe on BJP and sought to put the BJP on the mat over the statement from its own leader. Singh took to Twitter and said that when he termed Pulwama attack as an accident, three of PM Narendra Modi’s ministers labelled him a supporter of Pakistan. Singh added that now they should listen to Maurya’s statement.

Singh sparked a huge controversy on Tuesday over his statement and invited a terse reaction from BJP leaders. Earlier, he had urged the Modi government to present evidence of the air strike on terrorist camps in Pakistan, just the way the United States had done after killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011.

Union Minister VK Singh asked the Congress leader if he would term the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi an accident too. Subramanian Swamy pointed out that the US did not release any details when it killed Osama Bin Laden in an operation in Pakistan’s Abbottabad. He said that the Congress party was dishing out lies on everything.

Another BJP leader Prakash Javadekar slammed Digvijaya for his insensitive remark. “What has happened to the Congress? They are speaking against the sentiments of the country. They are calling lie the claims of defence forces. There is no democracy where questions are raised on the defence forces,” he said.

Subramanian Swamy said that Congress party is lying on everything and questioned the need to reveal the exact number of casualties and asked if America had provided details of Osama bin Laden’s killing.