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Joshi resigns; no need, says party

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI SEPT. 19. The Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, tendered his resignation today, becoming the first casualty of the Rae Bareli court order in the Babri Masjid demolition case, but his fate will not be known immediately as the Prime Minister is in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly session.

Dr. Joshi sent his three-line letter of resignation to the Prime Minister's Office and informed the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, of his decision. Although Mr. Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, and the RSS chief, K.S. Sudershan, spoke to Dr. Joshi on telephone and reportedly told him there was no need to resign, Dr. Joshi insisted on sticking to what he had said yesterday — that he would resign if chargesheeted and this was normal protocol.

The news that Mr. Advani had been "discharged", that is, no charges had been framed against him, did not lead to immediate celebrations at the BJP office, as would be normally expected. The dampener was the chargesheeting of Dr. Joshi and six other senior BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders including Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal and Giriraj Kishore.

The court order did come as a relief to the BJP for Mr. Advani had been spared, but the problem was the chargesheeting of Ms. Bharti, the party's chief ministerial aspirant in Madhya Pradesh.

The chargesheeting of some VHP leaders also had the potential of creating further divisions in the Sangh Parivar — as it is Mr. Kishore and Mr. Singhal are not even on talking terms with the BJP leaders. Mr. Kishore did not want to comment on Mr. Advani's "discharge" but said cryptically: "How can I say why Advaniji was let off... Roman law has been applied here, those who get away, get away, those who are caught pay the price."

Mr. Advani himself was not elated, although he admitted to being relieved. "It certainly gives me relief. It would have been a feeling of elation if all my colleagues had also been exonerated," he told reporters at his residence.

The Opposition, he said, "made a systematic attempt to malign me." Indirectly, he also expressed surprise over different court orders given out today to the accused. With the conspiracy charge dropped by the CBI, the charge that remained was of making inciting speeches and there was "nothing to distinguish accused A from accused B," an agency report quoted him as having said. He added that "no speeches had been made" by Dr. Joshi, himself or anyone else on the day the Babri Masjid was brought down on December 6, 1992.

Receiving the order with "mixed feelings", Mr. Advani strongly defended the Ram temple "movement" — which he himself led when he climbed a `rath' to make a journey from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1991.

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Stories in this Section

• Advani discharged; Joshi, others to face charges in Babri Masjid case
• Advani gets benefit of doubt
• Witnesses won over, admits Gujarat DGP
• Joshi resigns; no need, says party
• Sobhraj held in Nepal
• Bus service inaugurated
• A hasty action, says PM
• Warrant stayed
• A conspiracy: Mayawati

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