"Mrs Gandhi took no names. She said nothing wrong. She said what the state government has already admitted in the Supreme Court, nothing more, nothing less," Union Minister Kapil Sibal said in New Delhi.

“The Gujarat government's own counsel (K T S Tulsi) is saying Mr Modi should not have said it," he said.

Sibal was responding to a query about senior BJP leader L K Advani's sharp attack on Gandhi over the speech and the opposition party demanding action against her by the Election Commission over the ‘merchants of death' remarks.

The clarification comes even as AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi has been saying in party briefings that the ‘merchants of death' was not only most appropriate for Modi but in fact was too mild.

Sibal also attacked Modi for saying Gandhi's speech provoked him into making the speech that has sparked a huge controversy over his justification of Sohrabuddin killing.

"He brought out advertisments that were communal in nature in Gujarati papers on November 28 and 30, much before Mrs Gandhi went to Gujarat," Sibal said.