Rahul Gandhi found himself in a spot today, and his party struggling for answers, as friends and foes alike questioned his statement that had a Gandhi family member been active at the time, the Babri Masjid would still be standing. With the BJP and SP quick to point out that it was Rajiv Gandhi who had opened the Masjid gates to Hindu worshippers, the Congress today sought to justify Rahul’s remarks saying they should be seen in a “positive angle”, endorsing the Congress’s secular credentials, and not as “a negative criticism of anybody”.The Congress also maintained that opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid and performance of “shilanyas” there during Rajiv’s tenure was “not a communal act”. Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters that these actions followed “permissive orders of the courts” and efforts to reach a consensus.While the BJP termed Rahul’s remarks, made while campaigning in Muslim-dominated Deoband in Uttar Pradesh yesterday, an insult to “Hindu sentiments” and even “dangerous to democracy”, the SP said the process of demolition had started in Rajiv’s era and only culminated during the P V Narasimha Rao regime. UPA ally CPI(M) said there was no point in raising the “historical” issue now. Rahul himself stood by his comments, telling reporters at Thakurdwara, near Bareilly, during his UP roadshow: “I once again say that had any of my family members been there, it would not have happened. I am repeating what my father said earlier.”Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, senior BJP leader V K Malhotra said: “We are shocked to see how this young man and his party can stoop so low to please Muslims that they can go all out to insult sentiments of the Hindu community.” Rahul’s remarks show that “his family is now all opposed to construction of a Ram temple at that site”, he said, pointing out that it was Rajiv who had opened the Masjid to Hindus. “In a way Rahul Gandhi has shown disrespect to his own father and grandfather (the idol was installed in the Masjid during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time), but the larger issue is about the sentiments of the Hindu community,” Malhotra added. In Lucknow, BJP state president Kesri Nath Tripathi advised Rahul to brush up his facts. “He hardly knows any history and speaks too much without knowing anything,” he said. However, Sushma Swaraj saw nothing amateurish in the young Amethi MP’s remarks. “This is not an amateurish statement. It reflects the feudal mentality of the Gandhis,” she charged.According to her, Rahul’s remarks implied that none other than the Nehru-Gandhis could lead a government, adding that what was said about Rao could also be said about Manmohan Singh at some point.“Tomorrow, he (Rahul) may say that had anybody from his family been the Prime Minister in place of Manmohan Singh, Nandigram and price rise would not have happened,” she said.CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury felt there was no point in raising the “historical” issue now, though “we believe the government at that time could not carry out its responsibility in the manner which it should have done”.SP general secretary Mohan Singh demanded to know whether the “new Congress establishment headed by the Gandhi-Nehru family” stood by or disowned Rao’s statement that Babri Masjid would be rebuilt.Alleging that the Babri Masjid dispute became more complex during the Rajiv era, he said it cannot be forgotten that the late prime minister had launched the Congress campaign for the 1989 polls from Ayodhya.
