With Outlook magazine apologising for wrongly attributing Ashok Singhal's quote to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, CPI (M)'s Mohammad Salim said "what if the student didn't say it; the teacher indeed said it".
"What if the student (Rajnath Singh) has not said it; the teacher (Ashok Singhal) did say it. I don't want to personally comment against Rajnath Singh, I wanted to highlight the heinous politics of Sangha pariwar and I was successful in doing that," Salim told ANI.
"There wasn't any personal allegation against anyone; I only quoted the Outlook magazine," he added.
Salim also said that had he not brought up the issue, Outlook's article would have been part of historical record, not corrected.
"The media is giving this issue hype, because there is a competition," he added.
Yesterday, initiating the Lok Sabha discussion on 'growing intolerance', Salim angered the treasury benches with a quote attributed to Rajnath Singh, leading to a stalemate and repeated adjournments.
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Salim had quoted a report in Outlook magazine that had attributed the remark to Rajnath in the aftermath of the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.
Outlook clarified the quote was wrongly attributed to Rajnath and tweeted: "It was not our intention to denigrate the home minister or Parliament. Outlook sincerely regrets the embarrassment caused to Mr Rajnath Singh and Mr Mohammad Salim."
The tweet provided a link to a page where Outlook said, ". A remark ('first Hindu ruler after 800 years') made by the late Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad was erroneously attributed to. Rajnath Singh.