Cong gifts an old issue with a new wrapping to the BJP

The Indian government finds itself on back foot for the second time in Parliament in three days.

The first instance that the entire opposition closed ranks to take on the government was on price paid to cane growers. Even as it is still unable to wriggle out of the cane mess, the opposition found a new issue to corner the government. And rest of the opposition which swears by its secular credentials, has closed ranks with the BJP to the discomfort of the treasury benches.

Thus whatever hopes the treasury benches entertained of dividing the opposition by resurrecting the Babri Masjid issue, have backfired. What is more, the government finds itself looking for cover from the bouncers from the opposition.

The Indian Express Monday carried explosive exclusive excerpts from the report prepared by a judicial commission after a 17-year labour into the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 by right wing Hindu groups.

The daily promised to come up with more exclusives on Tuesday. But by Monday evening, most TV channels were quoting line and verse, and were dissecting the report findings even as the BJP has gone to the town with the declaration that it would stall Parliament till the government formally tabled the report.

The Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is ready to table the report before parliament adjourns sine die on Dec 21. But he is unwilling to set the date. “It is a voluminous report, running into 900 pages. I am trying to find out how to get the report translated into Hindi without any leakages”.

His contention is that there are only two copies - one with him in the Home Ministry and the other with Justice Liberhan, a former judge of the Allahabad High Court. Neither he nor any of his officers in the Home Ministry spoke to any journalists on the report.

‘It is unfortunate that a newspaper has carried ... what purports to be the contents of the (Liberhan) Report. I refrain from commenting on correctness or otherwise.....No one from the Home Ministry has spoken to any journalist,’ Chidambaram told both houses of Parliament kicking off a big furore that resulted in adjournment of the sittings for the day.

The judge is also furious. He shouted at the reporters who met him at his native Chandigarh. TV footage showed him yelling, ‘Get Lost’
‘It is for you (media) to go and find out (who leaked the report). I am not that kind of ‘a characterless person that I should leak the report’, the judge told journalists who accosted him when he was on his morning walk.

Justice Liberhan, who took as many as 48 extensions to complete his seven crore rupee probe, submitted his report in four volumes with an extensive set of annexures five months back in June.

The Indian Express ‘exclusive’, dubbed by some critics as based on executive summary, said the commission has indicted senior BJP leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, among others, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. It has more or less given a clean chit to PV Narasimha Rao, Congress Prime Minister of the day, but held guilty Kalyan Singh, the BJP chief minister of the day in Uttar Pradesh.

The judge called the BJP leaders ‘pseudo-moderates’, and did not spare the Muslim, groups like Babri Masjid Action Committee saying that they had failed the people.

By targeting BJP’s moderate icon, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the report has achieved the impossible – it united the faction ridden BJP and the larget Sangh parivar behind L K Advani, who till yesterday was under extreme RSS pressure to quit as leader of the Opposition. Advani was the face of the Ayodhya Movement.

Advani demanding a debate on the leakage and report told parliament, that he was shocked over the indictment of Atal Behari Vajpayee in the report as published in a newspaper. ‘Had I been indicted I would have it as a challenge. The demolition of the disputed structure (Babri Masjid at Ayodhya) was the saddest day of my life but personally, I am proud of my involvement with the Ayodhya movement’, he said.

Samajawadi party leader Amar Singh agreed with the BJP view that the report could have been leaked if not by the home minister then by the commission chairman, said it is shameful and a breach of privilege of parliament. He wondered how the Liberhan Commission took so many years in finalising the report, when the Supreme Court does day-to-day hearing in matters relating to industrial disputes like gas row (between the Ambani brothers).

CPM member Sitaram Yechury asked the home minister to ensure that cell phones of officials at their work places should be jammed when such sensitive reports or ATR is being prepared.

AIADMK's K Malaisamy asked the government that there would be no more such leakages.

On its part, the Congress spokesman, Manish Tiwari, a lawyer by profession, asserted that his party considered the leakage a serious matter but accused the opposition of not allowing Parliament to function smoothly.

- Asian Tribune -