Ahead of the crucial Allahabad high court verdict on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjd dispute, the Maharashtra home department is gearing to maintain peace among the two communities in Mumbai and adjoining areas.
The Congress is apprehending that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the sangh parivar would move to create trouble to make itself once again relevant politically, and for that they would fall back on the tried-and-tested Ram Janmabhoomi issue.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Tuesday said its response to the Ayodhya title suit verdict will be within 'law and Constitution' and indicated that further legal options can be availed of if the ruling is not upto its expectation.
Diminishing the prospects of an out-of-court settlement of the vexed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Majid issue, Muslim bodies are gearing up to file five more Special Leave Petitions in the Supreme Court to challenge the Allahabad High Court verdict.
He accused the Congress of putting up obstacles to the temple's construction through 'its lawyers' in the Supreme Court.
Narsinghanand, notorious for making intemperate remarks against Muslims, stoked yet another controversy with his comment that "50 per cent of Hindus will convert" in 20 years if a Muslim becomes the prime minister of India.
The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 provides for maintaining the 'religious character' of holy structures as it existed on August 15, 1947.
Highly placed sources said that the government had been given a life line when the Suprme Court took the line that one more effort should be made to bring all the parties together and arrive at a consensus to resolve the issue . It was continuing to advise the television channels to show restraint and not to broadcast any inflammatory material. The government has now extended the ban on bulk smses to September 29 for the same purpose.
For relatives of many kar sevaks who were killed in the Sabarmati Express coach fire incident in Gujarat's Godhra in 2002, the 'bhoomi pujan' for a Ram temple in Ayodhya on Wednesday brought a sense of closure to the pains of losing their near and dear ones for the cause of the temple.
Nath said the silver bricks were bought from contributions made by members of the Congress. "We will send 11 silver bricks for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya on the behalf of citizens of Madhya Pradesh," the former chief minister told reporters.
With the Bhoomi Pujan scheduled to be on August 5 and the who's who of Indian politics likely to make a visit in Ayodhya, the district administration has deployed hundreds of people for a beautification drive in the temple town. Roads, walls, streets are being painted, cleaned to give them a new refreshing look. Thousands of municipal workers have been deployed to do a cleanup drive in the town which will see visits of dignitaries on August 5. Take a look.
Modi's presence at the evnt would open wounds, the Hyderabad MP said.
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy to intervene in the pending matters relating to the Ayodhya title dispute with his plea seeking construction of Ram temple at the site of demolished disputed structure.
The SC said it had already listed the appeals before the appropriate bench in January.
'The Congress and the BJP are both pro-foreign and pro-rich. They should merge. They are not allowing space to pro-poor voices. If you do this, you are leading people to anarchist forces.'
Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party government, Hindu religious leaders have said that they will construct the Ram temple at the "Lord's birthplace" in Ayodhya without any political assistance if the Supreme Court gives order in their favour.
The issue of Lord Rama grabbed headlines again on Monday when Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said he would travel to Ayodhya and open talks with stakeholders in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute on November 16.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of A G Perarivalan, who has served over 30 years of life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
'During the Congress rule, the solicitor general had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court, stating that the government would side with the sentiments of the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a razed temple, where the mosque was built'
The various terrorist outfits through letters, e-mails and SMSs had threatened to strike in UP on Friday, which necessitated the stringent security measures across the state, the reports reaching Lucknow at the state headquarters said.
A case has been registered at the Kotwali police station on a complaint filed by the Trust's secretary and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Champat Rai, a senior police official said.
The mosque is coming up in the Uttar Pradesh district pursuant to the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi case.
Apparently distancing itself from the Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur episode, the Hindu Mahasabha has said it does not support terrorism by anyone and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of encashing on Hindu sentiments by coming out in support of the Malegaon blast accused."The BJP is encashing on religious sentiments of Hindus again for their politics. Earlier they had encashed on the Ram janmabhoomi issue and this time it wants to encash on Malegaon," the ABHM said.
Jaswant Singh, who was suspended by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday for going ahead with his decision to contest the election from Barmer constituency as an independent candidate, has claimed that he had never supported either the Ram Janambhoomi movement or the Rath Yatra led by Lal Krishna Advani.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday recalled how the government, political parties and the civil society prevented attempts to create fissures when the 2010 Allahabad high court ruling on the disputed land in Ayodhya was to be delivered.
Invitations are being extended to several people who have been part of this temple movement including BJP leaders L K Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, Mishra said. Kameshwar Chaupal, another trustee of the temple, said top leaders of the RSS including its chief Mohan Bhagwat and general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi are also being invited for the event along with VHP's working president Alok Kumar.
The ultimate battle against Islamist terror has to be fought by the Muslims themselves, for they are its biggest potential victim.
The Supreme Court sought the Centre's response on Friday to a plea filed before it challenging the validity of certain provisions of a 1991 law, which prohibit the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.
A magnificent Krishna Janambhoomi temple in Mathura was a recurrent theme for the ruling BJP in the run-up to the assembly polls, reports Nitin Kumar.
Security has been beefed up at all sensitive places and security personnel have been deployed in strength to thwart designs to create problems in the state, sources said.
The governor accepted the resignation and asked Kumar to continue as the caretaker chief minister till the new National Democratic Alliance government is sworn in.
'Considering the fact that the Attorney General for India has already declined to grant his consent in the present matter for the reasons detailed in the said letter...the present request made to me is misconceived,' Mehta said in his letter addressed to lawyer Anuj Saxena.
The BJP believed in a negotiated settlement through dialogue between representatives of the Hindu and Muslim communities, he said.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph would hear the appeals filed in the matter.
'Raj Thackeray's political outfit will soon fold up in Maharashtra.'
The submissions were made during the eighth day hearing in the case before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
Here are some of the reactions to the apex court's decision.
'The common Muslim of this country is not in favour of a review petition because he or she does not want that matters which have been settled are again raised and the community gets caught up in such things'
All 32 accused in the 28-year-old Babri demolition case, including BJP's founder-members LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, have been acquitted by a special CBI court in Lucknow.
The issue had cropped up when a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was hearing the batch of appeals filed against the Allahabad high court's 2010 verdict by which the disputed land on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid area was divided in three parts.
