Author: Neena Vyas
Publication: The Hindu
Date: December 5, 2000
The ``people's movement''
led by Mr. L.K. Advani, now Union Home Minister, for building
a Ram temple at Ayodhya which led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid
was today compared by the Bharatiya Janata Party to the ``freedom movement
led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders like Lokmanya Tilak and Subhas
Chandra Bose.'' It was therefore completely wrong on the part of the Congress
to demand his resignation for being an accused in the demolition case,
said the BJP spokesperson, Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra. He was
reacting to the Opposition demands in the Lok sabha today. Mr.
Malhotra likened the charge against Mr. Advani to the thousands of
cases instituted by the police during the British rule against leaders
of the freedom movement.
In any case, the demolition
of the ``disputed structure'' took place in 1992 and the chargesheet was
finalised in 1997. Then why raise the matter today, when it was not
even the anniversary of the incident, he asked. Was the Congress
sleeping all these years?
The BJP was saying earlier
the Ayodhya case was not like the corruption cases for which Ministers
should resign on moral grounds even before they were proved guilty and
that the saying that the Ayodhya agitation was a political protest.
But today, Mr. Malhotra made a distinction between a ``political
movement'' and a ``people's movement'' without clarifying what the differences
were.
However, the Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, stated publicly in Lucknow yesterday
that the Ram temple agitation was ``not a political agitation'' but ``cultural
and national movement.''
Asked why the Prime Minister
had sought the resignation of the former Minister of State for Defence,
Mr. Harin Pathak, who the BJP had claimed was ``politically chargesheeted
for murder,'' Mr. Malhotra said some in the party felt that he had
been ``wrongly made to resign.'' And as for Mr. Advani, ``there was
simply no question of his resignation on the Ayodhya chargesheet.''
