Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram on Tuesday responded to union home minister Amit Shah’s poser to the party what it had done to counter terror attacks while in power.

“I took over as home minister the day after the Mumbai terror attack ended, on December 1. Within a few days I flew to Mumbai. I think Milind (Deora, BJP Rajya Sabha MP who was in the Congress when the November 26 attack occurred) and in my first press conference, I said we acknowledge a security failure and an intelligence failure, and I regret the failure,” Chidambaram informed the Rajya Sabha. “Why can’t the government say that?”

Earlier in the day in his address, Shah had asked, “Between 2005 and 2011, there were 27 terrorist attacks. What did the Congress government do? They just sent dossiers to Pakistan.”

Soon after the Congress MP from Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi had reminded Shah, then home minister Shivraj Patil and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had stepped down soon after the Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008.

“You have been in power for 11 years, start accepting responsibility now,” she had said.

Patil and Deshmukh were not the only people to have resigned in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks that happened in multiple places that November night. The then National Security Adviser MK Narayanan had also resigned.

Chidambaram went on to tell the Rajya Sabha the steps that the UPA-I government under the late Manmohan Singh took in response.

“We did a number of things. We re-strategised. Within a month, I asked the cabinet to approve the National Investigation Agency Act. It was passed in that session and notified on December 31… The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was amended,” he said.

Chidambaram said the Congress-led government did everything after taking the Parliament into confidence. The former home minister’s target was the Narendra Modi government which refused to call a special session of the Parliament as demanded by the Opposition soon after Operation Sindoor, India’s targeted military offensive on terror camps allegedly operating in Pakistani soil.

“We took the Parliament into confidence. Now where is the re-strategy? Where is the taking the Parliament into confidence?” asked Chidambaram.

The MP said China’s foreign minister Wang Yi had praised Pakistan for its resolute stand against terrorism. “Our foreign minister had an audience with Yi and also President Xi Jinping. What did he tell them?” Chidambaram had more questions for the external affairs minister S Jaishankar. “We sent delegation to numerous countries. Why didn’t we send them our immediate neighbours, such as Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives and Mauritius? Have we given up on our immediate neighbours? Furthermore, another question arises. Although we sent delegations to many countries, and everyone condemned terrorism and sympathised with the victims in India, which country specifically condemned, named and shamed Pakistan?”