Liberhan Commission leak provides grist to BJP mill

The leak of the Liberhan Commission report on Babri Masjid demolition today appeared to have come as a grist to the mill for BJP which is yet to recover from its election defeat and the consequent internal crisis.

The reported indictment of LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi was not entirely unexpected but what came as a "surprise and shock" is the apparent reference to party patriarch and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the report.

Advani, who is said to be thinking of giving up the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha to make way for the younger generation, said he would take his indictment as a challenge.

This is interpreted by analysts as indications that he might hold on to the position in his fight against the Congress on a Hindutva plank that may be provided by the Liberhan report.

The party hopes that it can revive the Hindutva issue that pitch-forked it in the late '80s and early '90s. Advani made it that much clear when he said that had he alone been indicted he would have accepted it as a challenge.

"Indicting me, or my party is understandable, but when I saw somebody saying things about Vajpayee, under whose leadership I have worked lifelong in politics, in this manner and at this stage, I felt it beomes my duty.... ," Advani said. In the reported criticism of Vajpayee, a section of the party smells an opportunity as it can gain sympathy for dragging of the moderate leader's name.

"We are shocked and surprised to see Vajpayee's name in the report. His name had never come up in the issue. We cannot live with this falsehood," Deputy Leader of BJP in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj said.

She said if the newspaper report was true then Vajpayee has been indicted without being summoned by the Commission.

A section in the party feels it can revolve the whole debate around Vajpayee and try to gain sympathy by discrediting the report.

Vajpayee, considered the moderate face of BJP who was even described as a mask to hide the strong Hindutva face of the party, always distanced himself from the aggressive part of the Ayodhya movement.

He scored over leaders like Advani and Joshi in terms of acceptability and emerged as the head of the BJP-led NDA coalition due to his comparatively secular image. Indicting him may give the BJP a handle to take on the Congress-led government.  The party alleged that the government had leaked the report to puncture the unity among the opposition parties which had cornered the government last week on sugarcane prices and was threatening to rake up issues like price rise and scams like 2G Spectrum and Madhu Koda's corruption.

Till now Vajpayee's name had not figured in any news report about the Liberhan Commission. Neither was he ever summoned by the Commission in its 17 years of existence.

Vajpayee was arrested before he could reach Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 and was not present at the spot when the demolition took place.

Meanwhile, Swaraj said that Vajpayee had been apprised of the developments that took place in the day. He has been assured by the senior BJP leadership that it would take all steps in Parliament to clear his name.