Bhubaneswar CC Meet

VHP ULTIMATUM ON

TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION

Muralidharan

ON its second day, the CC condemning the decision on construction of the temple at Ayodhya termed the VHP’s ultimatum to have been taken with an eye to the elections to the UP assembly. Talking to newspersons, Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, said that the issue is not so much construction of the temple as that of the elections.

Its massive loss of support is forcing the BJP to once again adopt these tactics, viz., build up communal frenzy, and communally polarize the atmosphere. Such tactics however, Sitaram said, will not succeed as the people will see through their game, not only in UP, but in the rest of the country too. Pointing out that the deadline set by the VHP is for March 12, 2002 he said that within a few months from that date, elections to the UP assembly are due. The campaign preceding it would see arson and bloodshed throughout the country, similar to the ones witnessed during the infamous rathyatra of 1989 and in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6^th December 1992.

Condemning the announcement, the Central Committee noted that "any decision about the disputed site at Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid stood, can be taken only after the Courts dispose off the case regarding the ownership of the site" The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court is hearing the title deed case. No religious gathering or RSS outfit can be above the law of the land and the Constitution, the statement emphasized. Nobody has any right to try and impose conditions through intimidation and threat, Sitaram added.

Stating that a solution to this problem has to be found within the confines of the laws of the land, Sitaram Yechury said that the Prime Minister has to stand by what he wrote in his newspaper articles while resting in Kerala. Vajpayee had in his published ‘musings" committed that his government will abide by the verdict of the court. Warning that a few persons adorning the religious garb cannot hijacked the Indian Constitution, Sitaram said that all such attempts would be frustrated.