BJP says Ayodhya chapter is closed

NEW DELHI, August 25: In a significant departure from the Bharatiya Janata Party's earlier stand, its general secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu...

NEW DELHI, August 25: In a significant departure from the Bharatiya Janata Party8217;s earlier stand, its general secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu today said that his party would never raise the Ayodhya issue again even if it were to secure a majority on its own in the elections.

Speaking on the issue during an election programme on Star News, Naidu said: 8220;Let me make this very clear, even if tomorrow we were to fight an election on our own and get 370 seats, we will not make Ram Mandir part of our election agenda.8221;

Naidu8217;s radical exposition of the BJP8217;s stand on Ayodhya comes at a time when another general secretary and party ideologue Govindacharya had stated that construction of a Ram Mandir at the disputed site at Ayodhya, the implementation of a uniform civil code and abrogation of Article 370 were very much part of the party8217;s agenda even though they did not form part of the National Democratic Alliance NDA manifesto.

Naidu said that as far as the BJP was concerned, Ayodhya was a 8220;settled8221; issue.Asked what he meant when he said that Ayodhya was a settled issue, Naidu explained, 8220;No party is raising it anymore. It is no longer the agenda of any party.8221;

Replying to another query on where that left the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Sangh Parivar organisations who claim to be committed to building a Ram Mandir on the disputed site, the party general secretary, using uncharacteristic strong language, said, 8220;We are not concerned with the VHP or the kar sevaks. I am speaking for the BJP.8221;

Naidu, who is also the official spokesman of the BJP, also stressed that his stand on Ayodhya was not his individual opinion but that of the party as a whole. 8220;This is the view of my party. I speak for my party.8221;

The party general secretary also took pains to set the record straight on the other two contentious issues which, apart from Ayodhya, have cropped up in the BJP8217;s ideological agenda from time to time, that of the uniform civil code and Article 370.

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He said that as far as the BJP was concerned, onthese issues it would go only by a national consensus.

8220;We are part of a coalition. We will go by what the coalition8217;s national agenda of governance is. We will not divert from it one bit, not one bit,8221; he said.

Naidu8217;s bid to explain the party8217;s stand on these three contentious issues issues which the opposition has always highlighted to prove the BJP8217;s hidden agenda comes at a time when it was faced with considerable embarrassment over Govindacharya8217;s remarks.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was himself taken by surprise over Govindacharya8217;s remarks 8212; although they were later denied by the general secretary 8212; and emphasised that Ayodhya, uniform civil code and Article 370 were not part of the campaign agenda as agreed by the NDA.