Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram broke his silence on Thursday following sharp criticism from Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding his recent remarks on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Chidambaram, who served as Home Minister during the UPA government, reacted to PM Modi’s accusations on X (formerly Twitter), saying: "It is disappointing to read that the Hon'ble prime minister of India imagined the words and attributed them to me."

The controversy erupted after Chidambaram revealed in a recent podcast interview that he had considered a military retaliation against Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attacks but was persuaded otherwise due to international pressure.

"The whole world descended upon Delhi to tell us 'don't start a war'," Chidambaram stated in the podcast.

"Condoleeza Rice, who was then US Secretary of State, flew in two or three days after I took over, to meet me and the Prime Minister. And to say, 'please don't react'. I said this is a decision that the government will take. Without disclosing any official secret, it did cross my mind that we should do some act of retribution."

Following his remarks, PM Modi criticized the former Congress government during the inauguration of Navi Mumbai International Airport, claiming: "The then Congress government gave a message of weakness. Recently, a senior Congress leader and former Home Minister revealed that after the (26/11) Mumbai attacks, our security forces were ready to attack Pakistan, but due to pressure from another country, the Congress government at the time stopped our security force."

Chidambaram pushed back against the Prime Minister’s statements, calling them a “figment of imagination” and asserting that all allegations attributed to him were “terribly wrong”.

"The statement has three parts, and each one of them is WRONG, terribly WRONG," he added.