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By Our Special Correspondent
The Congress, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) disapproved of their move by these two leaders to use the funeral of the mahant, Ramchandradas Paramhans, to make such a statement. Terming it as "unfortunate", the Congress said it was totally opposed to the stand of the two leaders. "The credibility of these two leaders is so low on account of their shifting positions that nobody in the country is impressed with them. However, it was a gambit meant to keep the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi alive with the periodical lip service,'' the party chief spokesperson, S. Jaipal Reddy, said. The CPI(M) said the statements were a "complete negation" of both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution under whose oath the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister held their office. It also charged that Mr. Vajpayee has once again revealed his true colours of being an unadulterated RSS `swayamsewak' by pledging in Ayodhya that a Ram temple will be built at "Ram janmasthan''. "Clearly, the Prime Minister has reneged from his commitments to the Indian Parliament that the solution to the Ayodhya dispute will be determined by a court verdict or through a negotiated settlement,'' the CPI(M) politburo said in its statement. It said given the intransigence of the RSS/BJP the impossibility of a negotiated settlement was seen recently. Under these circumstances, the CPI(M) said, it had all along reiterated that any solution to the dispute could be based only on a judicial verdict. Conveying its strong disapproval, the CPI said it was unheard of that a Prime Minister should make a declaration at a funeral with regard to an issue which was pending before the court. "Clearly, the Prime Minister by openly taking the position of RSS-VHP, is forcing the issue and plunging the country into a crisis. He has not shown any respect for Parliament, which is in session or to the judiciary where title suit of the disputed site is being heard,'' the party central secretariat said in its statement. Echoing similar views, the CPI(ML) said that by returning to Ayodhya the BJP has shown its "growing weakness and desperation''. The Prime Minister had now dropped all his "earlier pretensions" of distancing himself from the Sangh Parivar's Ayodhya agenda. Meanwhile, the CPI(M) Parliamentary party leader, Somnath Chatterjee, today demanded that the Prime Minister explain to Parliament in the light of the latest statements. The opposition would raise the issue when Parliament reconvened on Monday. Accusing both the BJP leaders of trying to "whip up communal passions", he said the statements were made by design and the occasion was used for political purposes. Mr. Chatterjee said it showed that the two seniormost members of the Union Government had the "scant regard to the obligations'' of the office occupied by them.
An 'about-turn', says Deve Gowda
Our Tiruchi Staff Reporter writes: Mr. Vajpayee's "categorical assertion" that a temple would be built at the Ram Janmasthan signals a complete "about-turn in his stand", the former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader, H. D. Deve Gowda, has said. Describing as "unfortunate", Mr. Vajpayee's statement at Ayodhya on Friday, Mr. Gowda said that irrespective of the stand of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, Mr. Vajpayee had all along maintained that the Ayodhya issue needed to be resolved amicably either through court or through a negotiated settlement among the leaders of the Muslims and Hindus. But the Prime Minister had "reneged" on the promise made to the nation that his Government would abide by the NDA's national agenda for governance when it was voted to power, he told mediapersons here today. Mr. Gowda accused the Prime Minister of keeping the BJP's alliance partners in a "make-believe" world and using them only to ditch them ultimately. The Congress too, he said, was toeing a "soft Hindutva" line. His party would remain equidistant from both the parties and fight them in the Lok Sabha elections. However, he would not comment on the possibility of extending support to a Congress-led coalition Government stating that it was a hypothetical proposition. Mr. Gowda did not foresee the emergence of a third front at the national level in the immediate future. Nevertheless, there could be a re-alignment soon as some of the secular parties in the NDA itself might take hard decisions if the BJP continued to play the Ayodhya card for political gains.
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