M A I N   N E W S

Temple movement was ‘to counter’ vote bank 

New Delhi, January 29
The Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani today said that the BJP had joined the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple movement in 1989 after finding that other political parties were supporting the stand of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) on the disputed structure for “vote-bank politics”.

“Had it not been for the formation of BMAC and the tendency of most political parties to support it, the BJP may not have entered the fray,” he said in his concluding deposition as a witness before the Liberhan Commission probing the demolition of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992.

Mr Advani said till the middle of the eighties everything on the issue was done by the courts and the movement till then was for Ram temple. “The contrary movement had not started in the name of the protection of a mosque, but in the name of BMAC that naturally highlighted that it was not merely the issue of a mosque but that of Babri mosque”.

Asked by the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) counsel Yousuf H. Muchhala during his cross-examination whether he and his party attached any significance to the existence of a mosque till 1936, Mr Advani said he did not know whether this particular point was agitated before the courts of law in 1949 or not.

When AIMPLB counsel asked Mr Advani whether the BJP ever requested the organisers of the movement to postpone it in view of the delay in the judgement of the Allahabad High Court regarding the acquisition of land near the disputed structure, he said “all along it was expected that the judgement would come as the arguments had ended a month earlier”.

When asked about the differences between the BJP and the Shiva Sena, which was also actively involved in the movement, Mr Advani said his party had always laid emphasis on the fact that court orders would be respected. It had always condemned the demolition saying it was wrong, but the Shiv Sena had come out with varying response.

“So far as the Shiv Sena is concerned, both among leaders and workers, there has been varying response to the issue,” he said in his cross-examination by lawyer I.B. Singh, appearing for R.N. Srivastava and D.B. Roy, who were the DM and SSP of Faizabad, respectively, when the demolition occurred.

There was a tense moment when the Commission Chairman M.S. Liberhan disallowed senior advocate O.P. Sharma to continue cross-examination of Mr Advani, while he was persisting with the questions which were already answered. PTI