In what is being seen as a strong put down which could undermine the authority of the country's Union home minister, the Congress has put P Chidambaram on the mat for the use of the words 'saffron terrorism.'
He said it cannot be described as saffron, yellow, red, green or blue. The Congress leader's remarks came after opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and
Shiv Sena had made an issue of the remarks of the home minister in a conference of police officers.
After hearing's Dwivedi's views, the BJP has asked the home minister to apologise for his remarks.
A senior Congress leader, taking objection to Janardan Dwivedi, said Chidambaram was only repeating what AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh had said on many earlier occasions.
With the Congress leaders involved in a game of one upmanship, sources said that Dwivedi got the opportunity to target two birds with one stone in the shape of hitting out against both Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh.
So far the media department had been silent on the utterances by Digvijay Singh.
Off late there has been an unexpected bonhomie between the BJP and the Congress party, which first became visible when Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj visited Rajiv Gandhi's samadhi on his anniversary recently.
It send shock waves through both the parties as it was the first time that a BJP leader made such a gesture. This has been continued during the passage of the nuclear liability bill.
There are leaders in the Congress who are more inclined towards the right in their ideological make up and feel that a strong and healthy relationship between the Congress and the BJP is better than scrounging around for support amongst the casteist parties.
This section has always been there in the Congress, but now it appears to have become more active.
Apart from that, there are also attempts to make Rahul and Sonia Gandhi realise that the Congress should not annoy the predominantly Hindu voters in the country, particularly in the context of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
In this context, the recent decision to scrap the mega power plant in Gangotri because of objections by god men in spite of the group of ministers having given its approval, clearly illustrates that the leadership is being swayed to this viewpoint.
From time to time the Congress leadership has fallen into that trip and have emerged with their fingers burnt having fallen between two stools, says a veteran leader who has watched this game being played too many times.
The monsoon session of the Parliament has witnessed extraordinary scenes where the BJP leaders have not been tired of praising certain ministers in the UPA government, many of whom have had a chequred ideological past and have even swayed towards the BJP in the past, but are now known to be favourties of the leadership.
An example is the 'mutual admiration society' between Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun jaitley and Union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh.
Sources say there are also attempts both within the Cabinet and outside the government to gherao Chidambaram and put him down on a number of issues.
He had been seen as the rising star in the Congress-led government with admirers even mentioning his name as a potential prime minister material after Dr Manmohan Singh.
A senior minister said that the lobby to bring Chidambaram down to earth was increasing by leaps and bounds and said they had been almost successful in making him defensive before the leadership as a man who had little political gusto even though he has scored in many other areas.
It remains to be seen if Chidambaram retaliates to the attempts by his own party to show him down or whether he swallows it quietly, in the face of the newly opened debate on 'saffron terror.'
