New Delhi, Oct 16 (UNI) Slamming Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for his "over the top utterances" after the surgical strikes across the Line of Control(LoC), former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has said the Minister's remarks were fraught with serious consequences. The senior Congress leader said that even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned his ministers not to indulge in "chest thumping", Mr Parrikar was on "roller-coaster ride" and has made a spectacle of himself. "It was certainly lost on one person who ought to have maintained restraint — the Defence Minister. His utterances since the strike have been over the top, gross exaggerations, and invited ridicule even from quarters that generally supported the government," said the former Minister, in a published article. Severe criticism of Mr Parrikar's aggressive stances on the military operation by the prominent UPA leader has come two days after the Prime Minister called the Defence Minister a man of "few words". The Congress leader also countered Mr Parrikar on his assertions that the surgical strikes were carried out by the Indian Army for the first time in the history of the country. "In the past too, there have been breaches and retaliations. No less a person than General Bikram Singh, a former Army Chief, confirmed this recently. No less a person than Shivshankar Menon, a former NSA, explained the nature of such cross-LoC actions," he said. Mr Chidambaram urged to maintain sanctity of the LoC, saying that it is in the mutual interest of India and Pakistan that the understanding to maintain ceasefire, reached in 2003, is maintained by both sides as fully as possible and as long as possible. While maintaining that the present government was entitled to review the policy of "strategic restraint" followed by the previous UPA government and also entitled to authorise cross-LoC action, he said the the government was not entitled to indulge in exaggeration and vilification of previous governments and their policies. UNI MK SHS 1005