The Babri Masjid demolition issue has been one of the constants of Indian elections in the last decade. It resurfaced again on Saturday with Kalyan Singh.
The Babri Masjid demolition issue has been one of the constants of Indian elections in the last decade. It resurfaced again on Saturday with Kalyan Singh, one of the prime accused in the demolition case accusing the BJP's top brass of keeping him in the "dark" about the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 ."
Senior BJP leaders said no demolition would take place. I believed them," he added - in a not too subtle bid to woo the Muslim voters.
Kalyan Singh was chief minister of the BJP-led government in Uttar Pradesh at the time of the demolition in 1992 and one of the poster boys of the ram mandir movement.
He quit the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, and joined hands with his erstwhile bete noire Mulayam Singh Yadav and has been campaigning for the latter's Samajwadi Party candidates in UP.
He is contesting as an Independent from the Etah seat. Not surprisingly he is now singing a totally different tune and has accused the BJP leadership of conspiring to depose him . He is also now appealing to Muslims to help him bury the BJP. "Muslims don't want BJP, I don't want BJP. I have dug a ditch for the BJP and I request you to throw mud so that we can bury BJP," he said.
But not everybody is convinced of his make over. Not even Mulayam Singh Yadav's new found friend Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. On Saturday he attacked former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, calling him "a convict" in the Babri Masjid demolition case." He (Kalyan) is a convict in the demolition of the Babri Masjid, said Lalu .
Kalyan's diatribe against his former friends in the BJP came at an election rally where for the first time he shared the stage with enemy-turned-friend SP supreme Mulayam Singh Yadav. In the initial phases of the elections the SP chief had studiously avoided being seen in Kalyan Singh's company out fear of upsetting his vote base amongst the minorities. However with Yadav now engaged in a battle for survival the SP leader has thrown caution to the winds and is openly campaigning with Kalyan Singh.
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