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Post verdict, BJP says Babri Masjid demolition was 'spontaneous', not planned

Last Updated 30 September 2020, 15:15 IST

The Lucknow CBI Special Court judgement on Babri demolition in Ayodhya brings a closure on a note of elation and electoral success to the BJP after a three decade long-drawn political and legal wrangle.

While the Opposition parties have voiced outrage over the judgement calling it a “complete travesty of Justice” and contrarian in spirit to earlier judgement of the Supreme Court, the BJP has gone to the town showcasing the Wednesday judgement as an endorsement of its stand with veterans L K Advani claiming it vindicates his personal and the BJP’s belief and commitment towards the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement, and Murli Manohar Joshi insisting that the verdict has proven that their programmes were not under any conspiracy.

With the judgement in its favour, the top BJP leadership in the party and in the government have refrained from getting into any celebratory mode even as the judgement coming in the middle of election campaign for Bihar, the neighbouring state to UP, is bound to have its ripple effect electorally.

The verdict, though likely to be challenged in the higher courts, allows the BJP to claim full credit for the success of the Ram temple movement and at the same time wash its hands off the demolition, which Advani had described as the “saddest day” of his life.

BJP can now more effectively counter the Opposition charge that BJP leaders were directly involved in the demolition plan. The demolition of the disputed structure on December 6 1992 had then led to dismissal of the BJP government led by Kalyan Singh and electoral distance of Muslims in Hindi belt states for quite few years from Congress, which ruled the Centre at that time.

BJP, though it lost the immediate Assembly poll in UP in 1993 before the combined might of Samajwadi Party and BSP, was still the single largest party there and has grown in strength since it took up the Ram temple campaign. The party, which had won just two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 (Congress riding on sympathy wave of Indira Gandhi assassination decimated the Opposition), raised its number to 85 in 1989. Exactly 30 years after 1984, it repeated the feat of any single party getting a clear-cut majority on its own and in 2019 it broke its own record, winning 303 Lok Sabha seats.

But throughout all these electoral successes, the ghost of the Babri demolition kept haunting the BJP with many wondering what fate the case would ultimately take.

Soon after the judgement, several leaders form BJP and those who had taken part in the Ram temple movement revived their earlier stand that the razing of the disputed structure in Ayodhya was a spontaneous act and not any pre-planned event conspired by the party leadership.

Joshi said the “historic” judgement has brought out the truth before everybody while the firebrand Sadhvi Ritambhara, who had played a key role in the Mandir campaign said the demolition of the structure was not sponsored or planned, which the court has now upheld.

Calling the acquittal in Babri conspiracy case as “long due”, Ram Madhav said a “malicious case against some of the most respected leaders of our nation has fallen aside finally after 3 decades.” BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santosh flagged, “…Court rules out any conspiracy behind the demolition . Considers the demolition a spur of the moment .

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi in a video message on Twitter said the court order “proves our claim that the demolition of mosque was not pre-planned conspiracy….It was all spontaneous and there was no conspiracy”

"Satya pareshan ho sakta hai, parajit nahi. Aaj ek baar phir satya ki jeet hui hai. (True can be troubled but it cannot be defeated. Today, truth has won again," Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted in Hindi.

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(Published 30 September 2020, 15:01 IST)

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