By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress Saturday rejected Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad’s charge that it too was responsible for the demolition of the Babri mosque while the Left said the remark “was not far from the fact”.
Reacting to the railway minister’s statement in Bihar that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were both to blame for the 1992 razing, Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily said: “The Congress is not responsible for the demolition. (BJP leader L.K.) Advani is responsible for it.
“We (have) regretted the demolition a number of times,” he told CNN-IBN news channel.
Lalu Prasad made the comment while addressing a campaign rally in Darbhanga in Bihar Friday and repeated it Saturday in Patna.
According to him, the Congress, which was in power in New Delhi in 1992, could have prevented the attack on the 16th century mosque in Ayodhya. The razing triggered widespread communal violence.
The Left parties said Lalu Prasad’s comment had some basis.
“As far as Lalu Prasad’s comment is concerned… it is not far from the fact,” Communist Party of India national secretary Shameem Faizee told IANS. “But why has he realised it only now.”
The BJP in turn accused both the Congress and RJD of appeasing Muslims in view of the Lok Sabha elections.
BJP spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh told IANS: “The Congress and RJD and Samajwadi Party… they all have been playing politics on the Ayodhya issue to cater to a particular vote bank.
“Since the Congress and RJD are fighting elections separately and Lalu Prasad is finding the going difficult in Bihar, he made this comment keeping in mind the competitive vote bank politics,” Singh said.