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Rediff.com  » News » Some BJP leaders sabotaged Ram temple efforts: Uma

Some BJP leaders sabotaged Ram temple efforts: Uma

Source: PTI
March 27, 2006 16:18 IST
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Two or three senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including former party president Venkaiah Naidu, had sabotaged serious efforts to construct a Ram temple at Ayodhya during the last days of National Democratic Alliance regime, expelled BJP leader Uma Bharti claimed.

"During the last days of NDA government, we had made serious efforts for the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya and had held talks with Atalji (the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee). He had entrusted the responsibility of this work to me and Arun Jaitley, but some officials of the Prime Minister's Office who wanted a way out of the temple construction, did not favour a role for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in this," Bharti told a BBC Hindi programme Sunday night.

She said, "Such an attitude of these officials complicated the issue which led to delays. The efforts were to hand over the undisputed site of Lord Ram's birthplace to Ram Janam Bhoomi Nyas, and there was no problem as this land was under the control of the Central government. However, the BJP victory in Assembly elections in three states in November 2003 gave a false impression to the then party president Naidu that it was because of him that the party emerged victorious."

He along with two-three other leaders floated the idea that the BJP-led NDA alliance would be able to win third consecutive term at the Centre, and at a later time the temple construction could be brought on the agenda, she said.

"They floated the idea that if the temple issue was raked up, it might lead to disintegration of NDA and feared that it could lead to losing the general elections. Therefore, in the greed of forming a government third time consecutively at the Centre, these leaders gave up the temple issue, despite best efforts from people like me. They sacrificed our basic aim," the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said.

Asked how she now defined the party with which she had been associated for years, Bharti said, "Unfortunately, the tragedy of the BJP has been that when the culture of political management spread in the country, such managers began to dominate the party and stalwarts like Vajpayee and Lal Kishenchand Advani did not play the role which was expected of them, which led to the weakening of the party."

"I decided to get out of this mess and by doing so I have fulfilled my national duty, as the option before me was to either become like the political managers or not to accept the hijacking of the party and I chose the latter. I could not have been a part of the process of corporatisation of politics where fund raisers were taking the place of political leaders," she said.

Spelling out her future plans, Bharti said, "On April 30 in Varanasi, we would like all those who firmly believe in the ideology of Deen Dayal Upadhyay to come and join hands in the new party. Based on our basic principles, I am confident that in 10 years' time we would be on the centrestage of Indian politics and those who have given up the party ideology would be wiped out from politics."

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