Govt put on the back foot in Ayodhya-Babri debate

By our special correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 13. The Lok Sabha finally began the `Ayodhya/ Babri Masjid debate', with the Government finding itself, for most of the time, on the back foot. The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, is scheduled to reply tomorrow, after which the House will most probably see a division, forcing the National Democratic Alliance partners to take a stand, for the first time, on an issue that has been the litmus test for the secular/communal divide.

The six-day impasse in the Lok Sabha ended when the Speaker, Mr. G.M.C. Balayogi, admitted a motion under Rule 184. The motion read: ``That this House calls upon the Prime Minister to drop three Ministers from his Government, namely Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi and Ms. Uma Bharti against whom prima facie charges have been found to exist for their involvement in the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 and disapproves the stand of the Prime Minister seeking to exonerate the concerned Ministers.''

This formulation was not much to the liking of the treasury benches. Their only consolation was that in his ruling the Speaker had enjoined that ``nothing is said during the debate which may prejudice the course of justice in any manner''. The BJP members came pretty near to questioning the wisdom of the Speaker's ruling.

Speaker warns BJP

It took a stern note of disapproval from the Chair for the BJP benches to calm down and let Mr. Jaipal Reddy (Congress) start the debate. He began with a flourish, saying he owed it ``to my conscience and my country'' to move the motion, and proceeded to lambast the Prime Minister for ``abandoning the sectarian neutrality of his office'' by his statement favoring a temple at the disputed site. He also came down hard on the propriety of the three Ministers continuing in office. Accusing them of being a part of the conspiracy, Mr. Reddy said it was ``a colossal crime against the Constitution''.

Mr. Reddy's opening salvo was laced with wit. He said the Prime Minister had ``made the Pilgrim's Progress from hypocrisy to theocracy''. The eloquent Mr. Reddy noted that the Prime Minister often took recourse to poetry to avoid taking a stand on issue ``and had never condemned the demolition''; but now, Mr. Reddy wondered whether the Prime Minister ``was a converted liberal who had become a reconverted fundamentalist''. The Congress lead speaker concluded: ``The mask had fallen and revealed a lameduck Prime Minister devoid of moral authority.''

Parallel trial: Jaitley

From the treasury benches the burden of refuting Mr. Reddy fell on the Law Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley, who argued like a good lawyer that he is. Mr. Jaitely effectively sought to deflate the Opposition's contention that the three ``chargesheeted'' Ministers should resign, and charged that the Opposition was conducting a ``parallel trial'', and was trying to write a ``new jurisprudence''.

The Law Minister's contention was that the chargesheets ``were filed before they became Ministers'', that each one of them had subsequently won a number of elections, and that ``civilised jurisprudence'' demanded that these be presumed innocent till proven guilty. Mr. Jaitley questioned the constitutional propriety of the Opposition telling the Prime Minister who to keep and who to keep out of his Cabinet.

It was left to the veteran, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee (CPI-M), to put the motion in the larger perspective of the great constitutional, political and moral issues involved in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Debunking the Law Minister's charge of ``parallel trial'', the CPI(M) leader reminded the BJP that it had sought the exit of Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr. Buta Singh and Mr. Sedapatti Muthiah when these were chargesheeted. Mr. Chatterjee went on to question the propriety of the Prime Minister casting himself as the spokesperson of one community, whereas his high office enjoined him to care for all sections.

Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) forcefully made the point that the ``mandir wahin banega'' line (temple will be built on the disputed site) was ``not a nationalist but an RSS sentiment.'' He reminded the BJP that it had lost the election in Uttar Pradesh after December 6, 1992.

He charged that Mr. Vajpayee had tried to divert the people's attention from the allround failure of the Government.

Interestingly, while Mr. Yadav was speaking about the Babri Masjid demolition, a BJP member, Mr. Avaidhyanath, was heard saying ``Mathura ka bhi number aana hai'' (Mathura's turn too will come), revealing the new assertive mood in the BJP's `temple brigade'.

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