The Hindu : Legislate or face agitation: Togadia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2003

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Legislate or face agitation: Togadia

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 2. A resolution of the Ram temple issue will now be possible only through legislation by Parliament or via an agitation, which could lead to a civil war or "anarchy" in the country, according to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Pravin Togadia.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. Togadia said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government could try to get a bill passed on Ayodhya during the monsoon session this year. "Parties will either support it and it will be passed, or the Vajpayee Government could fall," he said, paving the way for a mid-term general election.

Announcing that the second and next phase of its Ayodhya agitation would involve "people from every village in the country", he said that its exact shape would be decided after a meeting of the Ram Mandir Uch Adhikar Samiti in Ayodhya on April 29 and 30. "Every village will become Ayodhya," he said adding that the country was "moving towards a civil war". The first phase of the agitation, a daily "satyagraha", ended today.

Mr. Togadia came down heavily on the recent Supreme Court judgment which refused to vacate the stay imposed last year in March on any kind of activity on the entire 67 acres of Central Government-acquired land in Ayodhya. "When daily `puja' at the disputed site in Ayodhya is not causing communal disturbances, how would activity on the undisputed land lead to communal tensions," he asked. It was a reference to the judgment which stressed that the need to maintain communal harmony was one reason not to concede the Centre's plea in the case.

The VHP made it plain that all attempts at a negotiated settlement of the Ayodhya dispute had failed, that for 53 years a resolution through court had not materialised, and that there were only two options now — legislation by Parliament or the building of a temple by force through an agitation. "After all, we had demolished the Babri `dhancha' (structure), we had also come out on the streets of Gujarat", but "we can also conduct our agitation peacefully", he claimed, pointing to the peaceful `satyagraha' for the last few days when "not a single stone had been thrown".

One part of the VHP action plan would be to contact all MPs, get their views on the Ram temple issue and make these public in every village in their constituencies. The VHP feels that this would lead to "such a churning" that MPs from many parties would approve of the Ayodhya legislation for fear of losing the electoral clout in their constituencies.

Significantly, Mr. Togadia also said that the VHP had the full support of the RSS on this — the joint general secretary of the RSS, Madan Das Devi, had participated in the `satyagraha' to express solidarity.

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