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Basharat Peer in New Delhi
Muslim leaders on Monday strongly denied that the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has entered into a dialogue with the government on the Babri masjid issue.
Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said in Lucknow on Sunday that talks were being held at various levels and a solution to the Babri Mosque-Ram Temple dispute would be found by March 2002.
Vajpayee reiterated it in the Lok Sabha on Monday, but did not give the names of any organisations or individuals quoting national interest.
"No talks have been held with us or any respectable Muslim organisation or individual," Mujahid-ul-Islam Qasimi, chairman of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board told rediff.com.
The Muslim leadership feels that it is a political gimmick to divide the electorate on communal lines in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
"Vajpayee and Giriraj Kishore have joined hands because the BJP is desperate to win the UP elections. If they loose UP, they loose Delhi. So they have taken recourse to whipping up communal tensions to encash upon the Hindu vote bank in UP," Qasimi said.
Meanwhile, international vice-president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Acharaya Giriraj Kishore said in Bhubaneswar on Monday that the VHP would go ahead with the construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya after March next year.
"Such a statement is not a challenge to the Indian Muslims, but to the Indian State. It is clear disregard of the Constitution, the judiciary and the State," former MP and convenor of Babri Masjid Coordination Committee, Syed Shahabuddin told rediff.com.
Shahabuddin took the new deadline set by the VHP lightly saying they (VHP) had been fixing one deadline after another.
But he quickly added that this time around the deadline is aimed at the forthcoming UP elections.
"See the statements from the VHP and the PM are coming at a time when the election campaign in UP is at its crescendo. They want to create a euphoria around this issue and add to the BJP votes," he said.
Some days back, the VHP had demanded that the government should come out with a legislation to facilitate the construction of the Ram Temple.
Reacting to the statement Shahabuddin said, "Even if the BJP had absolute majority and passes such a law, it can always be tested at the altar of the Supreme Court."
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