BJP president disputes Kalyan's charges

Bharatiya Janata Party president M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday dismissed former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh's accusation that his party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were responsible for the demolition of the Babri masjid.

Addressing a press conference in Hyderabad, Naidu said, "It is an absurd allegation coming from a frustrated neo convert to pseudosecularism."

The BJP president wondered why it took Singh '11 long years' to realise that he was pressurised and asked to lie by BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Kishenchand Advani and Union Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi on the issue.

"Our stand is very clear. The evidence placed before the Liberhan Commission shows that Vajpayee, Advani or other BJP leaders did not have any role in this (demolition of the Babri masjid)," the BJP president asserted.

Advani and other leaders, on the other hand, had tried to control the karsevaks, he insisted.

Naidu said such allegations were being made with the aim of influencing public opinion against the BJP.

"But such attempts have failed in the past and they will fail again," he added.
Naidu reiterated the BJP's official stand that the demolition was most unfortunate and unintended.

"The entire situation at that time was uncontrollable. It is in everybody's knowledge. If there is a change in somebody's stand, it is because of the change in their political stands," he maintained.