PTI

New Delhi, Mar 23: In a sharp reaction to the criticism of the Central government over the IPL issue, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today hit back at the BCCI and the BJP, saying that the cricket tournament was a "shrewd combination of sport and business" and there was no need to add politics to it.

A day after the BCCI announced that the second edition of the IPL was being shifted to a foreign country because of security issues in India, Chidambaram told a press conference that while he had no comment on that decision, he had read a number of statements which obliquely criticised the Central government. "These statements require an answer. Some unwarranted comments also deserve a rejoinder," he added.

Taking on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had described the shifting of the IPL out of India as a "national shame", the Home Minister said that most people in India thought that the Gujarat communal riots of 2002 were a national shame.

To another BJP leader Arjun Jaitley's comments that the decision will send a negative message to the world and that the Congress-ruled states have been non-cooperative towards holding of IPL in India, Chidambaram said, "I know that Mr Jaitley has a penchant for exaggeration, but because he also wears the cap of the president of the DDCA he seems to have gone overboard this time."