New Delhi, December 3
Former Utter Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh today retracted his statement against top BJP leaders, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi that they were allegedly involved in the Babri Masjid demolition conspiracy, while deposing before the Liberhan Commission.
Submitting his affidavit before the commission, probing the circumstances that had led to the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992, Mr Kalyan Singh said he had made the allegations against the three top BJP leaders as a ‘furious reaction’ when the Centre’s counsel, during the NDA regime, had blamed the then UP Government headed by him, for its failure to protect the disputed
structure at Ayodhya. Mr Kalyan Singh, while being out of the BJP, in June last year had accused Mr Vajpayee, Mr Advani and Mr Joshi of being involved in the Babri Masjid demolition conspiracy. Defending his role as the Chief Minister of UP when the mosque was razed to the ground, Mr Kalyan Singh said the paramilitary forces at the disputed site were deployed by the then Central Congress Government, headed by P V Narasimha Rao.
Mr Singh said he never had supported the demolition of Babri Masjid but described the December 6, 1992, incident as ‘an act of God’.
But said that he firmly believed that a Ram Temple existed at the spot of the mosque, which was built by Babur after demolition of the Hindu shrine. Mr Kalyan Singh said he had immediately resigned as Chief Minister after the demolition owning ‘moral responsibility’ for the incident though he was not present in Ayodhya on that day.
He claimed that whatever forces were available with the state government, they were adequately deployed in Ayodhya to maintain the law and order when kar sevaks had assembled there in a large number to perform the symbolic kar seva. He also said that the mosque there had become defunct after namaz was not being performed there since 1936 and it was virtually functioning as a temple after idols were found there in 1949. Its gates had been opened for Hindus in 1986 during the Congress regime. Stating that he had no ‘‘regret, repentance, sorrow and grief for the December 6, 1992, incident,’’ Kalyan Singh said only question before the Hindus now was about building of a grand Ram Temple there. ‘‘The place at the disputed structure was a Ram Temple, it continues to be a Ram Temple and will remain a Ram Temple,’’ he asserted
