New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) Pleased with the Ayodhya verdict, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders feel that it will help them reach out to the people with the message that the party had delivered on its issue of building a Ram temple at the ‘place of his birth’.
Party leaders also said that the verdict opens a framework for resolution of the issue that has seen prolonged litigation.
Not keen to talk of how the verdict will play out electorally, party leaders said the judgment will be an effective answer to those who have taunted the party in the past of paying lip-sympathy to the cause of a Ram temple.
‘It is much more than an electoral issue. We may win or lose but we have always held that the temple should be built at Ayodhya,’ a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity.
He said the party can now say that it has succeeded in delivering on one of the main issues which it had officially taken up nearly two decades back and was led by party leader L.K. Advani.
He said the evidence produced before the Allahabad High Court in favour of a pre-existing temple at the place where the Babri mosque was built included accounts of foreign travellers, Sikh scholars apart from the report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
The BJP leader said that ‘mainstream India’ had accepted the verdict and it can be a launching pad for a new chapter in national integration and inter-community relations as reflected in the party’s official statement Thursday.
Referring to remarks of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who said that the judgment was hardly based on legalities, the BJP leader said that ‘some people do not wish the issue to be settled’.
He said if contesting parties move Supreme Court, it may decide to look at the evidence again.
A three-judge Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court Thursday said the disputed site in Ayodhya where the Babri mosque was razed in 1992 would be divided into three parts — between two Hindu litigant parties and a Muslim group.
