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Wednesday, Jan 12, 2005

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National

Dismiss Tamil Nadu Government: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 11 . The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded the dismissal of the Tamil Nadu Government, for "acting in a biased and prejudiced manner" against the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, in the Sankararaman murder case. After two meetings that took stock of the happenings in the case — the grant of bail to the Sankaracharya by the Supreme Court and the arrest of the junior Acharya, Sri Vijayendra Saraswathi — the BJP decided to hold a nation-wide protest week from January 15.

Later, senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi told the press that the "main demand" would be the "dismissal of the Tamil Nadu Government."

The timing of the arrest of the junior Sankaracharya showed the Government's "attitude".

Dr. Joshi said the BJP viewed the entire episode as "an assault on the cultural and religious rights of Hindus." He feared that "this could happen to other dharmacharyas too."

The party meetings were attended by the top brass, including the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the party president, L.K. Advani, Dr. Joshi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, general secretaries, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Muktar Abbas Naqvi and Sanjay Joshi, and the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra.

The party took note of the "changing stand" of the Tamil Nadu police on the evidence it had on the Sankaracharya.

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