The Hindu : `Sants have lost faith in Vajpayee'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 05, 2002

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National

`Sants have lost faith in Vajpayee'
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 4. It was their moment under the sun and they fully basked in it; often turning the press conference called to announce their decision on the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya into a religious discourse of sorts.

With two television channels covering their press conference live and the media hanging on to their every word, the `sants' associated with the Ram temple agitation today sought to make the most of the media attention.

They spoke in different voices, though. While the former BJP MP, Avaidyanath, and Ram Vilas Das Vedanti, said that a final decision would be taken at a meeting of the `sants' tomorrow and indicated a willingness to postpone their programme if the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, set a time-frame for resolution of the issue, the VHP international president, Ashok Singhal, insisted that there was no change in the plans to move the pillars at 2-15 p.m. on March 15.

Though Mr. Singhal was upset with certain questions, the `sants' were perfectly at ease; wearing a smile even as they caustically criticised the Vajpayee Government for not steering the Ramjanmabhoomi movement to its logical end after being elected to power on its ``strength''.

Providing quotable quotes and television bytes galore, the president of the Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas, Ramchandra Paramhans, and Avaidyanath sought to show the Congress as a better ally of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement than the BJP Government. Likening the decade since the demolition of the Babri Masjid to Ram's ``vanvaas'' (banishment from Ayodhya), they lamented that a Ram temple at his birthplace remained a dream, despite a BJP Government at the Centre.

In particular, sant Paramhans trained his guns on Mr. Vajpayee; reminding him that he would have been a non-entity without the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. Repeatedly stating that the `sants' would not approach the Prime Minister, he accused Mr. Vajpayee of trying to ``better the British and Mulayam Singh Yadav.'' The `sants' had lost faith in Mr. Vajpayee as he had gone back on his word several times. ``Pradhan Mantri bahut chaalaak hai (the Prime Minister is very shrewd).''

He went on saying there would be no compromising on the temple issue. ``Hum kisi ke baap ki jagah ko nahin maang rahe hain (we are not asking for someone's private property)'', he said adding that they were just asking for a place where the earlier governments had allowed them access.

Continuing his tough posturing, sant Paramhans added for good measure that even if Lord Ram were to tell him that the disputed site was not his birthplace, he would not budge!

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