Babri Commission indicts top Atal, Advani

New Delhi, Nov 23 (PTI) Top Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leaders including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and
Murli Manohar Joshi have reportedly been indicted by a
Commission of Inquiry which was set up 17 years ago to probe
the demolition of Babri Masjid.
A newspaper report about the findings of the
Commission, headed by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan,
triggered an uproar in Indian Parliament with both the Houses
adjourned after BJP members attacked the government over the
"leakage".
The voluminous report, which was submitted to the
government about five months ago, is believed to have called
the BJP leaders "pseudo-moderates" holding that Advani and
Vajpayee cannot be absolved of their responsibility in the
demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya in India's
northern state of Uttar Pradesh on December 6, 1992.
The Commission is understood to have said that
Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi could have been used by the Sangh
Parivar as publicly acceptable faces of the movement and were
still party to all decisions.
It said none of them had the capacity to defy the
orders of the Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS) without damaging
their political future and called them tools in the hands of
the RSS.
The Commission is not not believed to have criticised
the late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao saying as per
Constitution the Indian Government can act only after it
receives the recommendations of the state Governor.
The newspaper report led to a ruckus in both Houses of
Indian Parliament where BJP demanded suspension of the
Question Hour and a debate on the "selective leaks" on the
Liberhan Commission report. Both the Houses were adjourned
till lunch.
Leader of the Opposition L K Advani tabled a notice in
the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) and his counterpart
in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) Arun Jaitley
gave a similar notice.
Members of BJP stormed the well of both the Houses
criticising the leak and also shouted slogans against the
indictment of former Prime Minister Vajpayee.
Home Minister P Chidambaram told Parliament that there
was only one copy of the report with him and there was no no
leakage by the government.
It was preparing the Action Taken Report (ATR) to be
tabled with the main report that would be presented to
Parliament before the end of the current session.
Justice Liberhan said from Chandigarh that he had
nothing to do with the leak and that anybody could manipulate
the report and put words into his mouth.
Other parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party
(BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of
India-Marxist (CPI-M) also demanded early tabling of the
report.
While the BJP saw a political motive behind the
"leakage" as a diversionary tactics of the government in
Parliament, the Congress party said it was known to the world
for the last so many years the role of the BJP and the sangh
parivar in the demolition. PTI VSC
ANU