Will never buckle, fall or join BJP: Chidambaram

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday hit out at the Centre over the Kashmir issue and spiralling onion prices and accused the BJP of targeting political rivals and said he will neither buckle or fall under pressure nor join the ruling BJP.

He said: "As we speak now, freedom is denied to 75 lakh people in the Kashmir valley," adding, if freedom of one person was denied, it meant denying it for all the people.

"Freedom cannot be separated, yours is mine and mine is yours and if I do not protect your freedom, you cannot protect mine," he said on his arrival here from Delhi.

After being in Tihar jail and in the custody of CBI and the Enforcement Directorate for 106 days, he was released on December 4 following grant of bail by the Supreme Court in a money laundering case filed by the ED.

After he was given a rousing welcome by Congress workers, Chidambaram told reporters: "In this country, a right wing, retrograde (government) is moving towards a fascist type of government that usurped freedom...we have to be very vigilant."
Asked about Union Minister Prakash Javadekar's charge that he has violated his bail conditions, he said: "Prakash Javadekar does not know about the (Supreme Court) court's verdict and he also does not about what I had spoken."
Later, addressing a public meeting at the Congress party's State headquarters here he said:
"This morning, the price of onion in Delhi was Rs 200 a kilo, while a farmer in Maharashtra producing it gets Rs seven a kg for it. We should talk only about that."
Quoting a popular verse of nationalist poet Subramania Bharathi, he said the bard may have sung it "bearing Modi in mind."