By IANS,
Lucknow : Rebel Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh Wednesday said he had owned “moral responsibility” for the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
Kalyan Singh said this in a statement that is widely being seen as an attempt to help Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to wriggle out of the raging controversy over the recent bonhomie between the two otherwise ideologically opposed politicians.
Mulayam Singh has been repeatedly asserting that Kalyan Singh, who presided over the razing of the 16th century mosque in 1992, “owes moral responsibility for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in his capacity as then chief minister of the state”.
“While taking moral responsibility for what happened in Ayodhya Dec 6, 1992, I had stepped down from the office of chief minister,” Kalyan Singh said in the statement.
“Everyone has the right to take pride in his faith; just as Muslims have every right to take pride in Islam, likewise Hindus too have every business to take pride in Hindutva.”
The statement, however, added: “But this was not palatable to certain vested interests who were attempting to create confusion on that account.”
Echoing Mulayam Singh’s publicly expressed sentiment, Kalyan Singh said: “My association with Mulayam Singh Yadav was not the result of any political arrangement, but it was based on an unconditional bond of friendship.”
“And there was a four-fold purpose behind this friendship – to weaken the BJP; to prevent the BJP from riding on to power at the centre following the next Lok Sabha elections; to establish social justice in the state; and to uproot the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from power in Uttar Pradesh, where the present regime has unleashed a reign of terror by openly inducting criminals and outlaws in the ruling dispensation.”
Kalyan Singh, however, avoided having any direct interaction with the media.
“Babuji (Kalyan Singh) is busy and will not be able to spare time for the media. That is why he has issued this statement,” said an aide at his residence while handing over the press statement.