Congress welcomes Ayodhya deferment; BJP, Left differ

NEW DELHI - Political parties reacted contrastingly to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to postpone the Allahabad High Court judgement on the Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute till Sep 28, with the ruling Congress welcoming the order and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioning the motive behind the deferment.

The Left parties also found no purpose in the Supreme Court decision.

Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters here that the “party respected the decision by the Supreme Court”.

“Congress party’s primary view is that issues like the Ayodhya dispute should be solved through dialogue between the concerned parties and communities,” Dwivedi said.

“If the dialogue does not lead to a solution, then judicial means should be resorted to. In that case, everyone should respect the court verdict too,” the Congress leader said.

Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan said: “It is good if the matter is sorted out-of-court.”

“The most important thing is that no untoward incident should happen after the court pronounces its judgement. We all will abide by the court’s verdict and if not satisfied, we have an option to approach the higher court,” said Chavan, who is also a Congress general secretary.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court was scheduled to pronounce its verdict Friday on five title suits - four by Hindus and one by the Muslims, the Wakf Board - relating to the site in Ayodhya where the Babri mosque once stood.

BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad Thursday questioned the intention of Ram Chandra Tripathi, whose petition was considered by the Supreme Court to defer by a week the Ayodhya verdict.

“The high court tried for reconciliation, but this man (Tripathi) had not appeared then. Maybe someone is playing some game in the name of the Commonwealth Games,” Prasad told NDTV news channel.

“How can a stranger who is a non-serious party disrupt it,” asked Prasad, adding that he was not speaking as a BJP spokesperson but as a senior lawyer.

“He never appeared in the course of arguments in the high court,” Prasad said.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP in the Lok Sabha Basudeb Acharia said the Supreme Court should not have postponed the judgement.

“Whatever be the judgement, both the parties should be abide by that,” Acharia told IANS from his Bankura constituency in West Bengal.

He also rejected the idea of a reconciliation. “There is no scope for reconciliation,” Acharia said.

S.Q.R. Illyas of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) said he was disappointed at the deferment of the verdict.

“This is very unfortunate. The people were waiting for the judgment (Friday),” he said.

Sunni Central Waqf Board counsel Zafaryab Jilani told a TV channel from Lucknow: “I don’t think there is any chance of reconciliation.”

He said Tripathi is an insignificant person in the Ayodhya case. “He is not at all a serious player,” Jilani said.

He, however, said everyone has to respect the Supreme Court order.

“It is an order. We have to respect it,” Jilani said.

The mosque was demolished on 6 Dec, 1992, by Hindu radicals who claimed that the site is the birthplace of the Hindu god Lord Ram.

Hindu plaintiffs in the title suits have argued that the mosque was built in 1528 by a Mughal general after razing a temple at the site.