The Hindu : PM, VHP playing 'friendly match' on Ayodhya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 17, 2002

National

National

PM, VHP playing 'friendly match' on Ayodhya

The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, waves to the crowd at an election meeting in Varanasi on Saturday. She is flanked by Mohsina Kidwai and Devendra Dwivedi. Photo: Akhilesh Kumar

VARANASI, FEB. 16. The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, today took exception to the continuing tirade against terrorism, alleging that there appears to be a conspiracy against certain sections of society under the camouflage of fight against terror.

Addressing an election meeting at the Town Hall Grounds here, Ms. Gandhi said terrorism was being used to create division among communities and raise an accusing finger against certain sections. ``Most of the issues relevant to the daily life of the common people are in no way related to the fight against terrorism,'' she said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership cannot cover up their ``non-governance and inefficiency'' by raising the terrorism bogey. ``From Lucknow to New Delhi, misgoverance and corruption were rampant and these were the actual problems faced by the people today,'' she said.

Ms. Gandhi said the BJP and the VHP were engaged in a ``friendly match'' on the Ayodhya issue and asked the Prime Minister to tell the saffron forces that the court order would be honoured.

``Everyone knows that the temple issue was pending in the court and its judgment would be accepted by all,'' she said and added that it seemed that the BJP and the VHP were engaged in a friendly match on the temple issue.

The Congress president accused the BJP of raising the temple issue and terrorism only for political gains in the Assembly elections.

PM playing 'double card'

The Congress today reacted sharply to Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's remarks on the Ayodhya issue accusing him of playing a ``double card'' in league with the VHP on the issue.

``The BJP Government and more particularly Mr. Vajpayee plays double card. On the one hand he told the VHP to go for temple construction, while on the other, to keep the NDA partners behind him, he assures them that he would not allow the construction,'' the AICC general secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad, told the television channel `Aaj Tak.'

``To mislead public, the VHP and the NDA Government are making different statements at different places,'' he said, adding that it was difficult to say that they were two different organisations.

- UNI, PTI

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National