M A I N   N E W S

VHP asks BJP to seek fresh mandate
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 12
Barely 10 days before the Monsoon session of Parliament, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad today demanded the BJP to seek a fresh mandate if it could not bring about a legislation for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The Hindu organisation also ruled out any compromise on its resolve to `liberate’ Kashi and Mathura. The VHP, however, backtracked on its demand of resignation of Prime Minister on this issue.

“Hindu society and religious leaders would launch a countrywide stir against the BJP if it turns away from its duty to introduce a Bill on Ayodhya,” Mr Ashok Singhal, the VHP supremo, said here today.

The VHP leader was briefing mediapersons on the resolution passed at the meeting of the high power panel of the Ram Mandir Nirman Andolan Samiti.

“There is no ultimatum and no deadline has been fixed.

We have made our position clear and it is for them (BJP) to decide,” the VHP supremo said.

The BJP had been consistently maintaining that the VHP demand for a legislation on Ram temple was neither “feasible” nor part of the NDA agenda.

Without directly naming the Kanchi Shankaracharya whose latest peace initiative was “rejected” by the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, the resolution condemned the efforts at “trading” on the issue “by negotiating on terms humiliating and unacceptable to Hindus and neglecting the sentiments of the Hindu society, religious leaders and VHP which had been waging a struggle for the temple over the last four decades.”

“It was his (Kanchi seer’s) responsibility to take us into confidence before taking the initiative,” Mr Singhal said.

He said “no talks on the Ayodhya issue could succeed without the involvement of the VHP and the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas.”

Mr Singhal, apparently under the influence of RSS leaders, including its Chief K.S Sudarshan, Mr Singhal, today denied ever demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over his “failure” to bring in the legislation on Ayodhya.

He said he had merely said the BJP in its 1989 Palampur resolution had committed itself to the cause of Ram Janambhoomi.

“If it cannot be solved through negotiations, then efforts should be made to solve it through legislation and if the Bill falls through, he should go to the people and get people’s mandate,” he said.

Mr Singhal said yesterday’s resolution had categorically asserted that the VHP-backed Ram Janambhoomi Nyas alone has been authorised by the Hindu religious leaders to build the temple at Ayodhya and more than half of the stone for the temple was lying at the Nyas-run workshops.

Regretting the “stubborn attitude” of the Muslim community on the issue, Mr Singhal said, “they must respect the sentiments of the majority community.”

A high-level meeting would be held again on September 14 to decide the future course of action on the vexed issue, he added.