The BJP-led Opposition resurrected the Shankaracharya issue today, after keeping silent for most of the Winter session of Parliament, that ends tomorrow. An NDA delegation, led by former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek the Centre’s intervention in the matter.The delegation submitted a memorandum to the PM today, complaining against the Tamil Nadu government’s ‘‘all-out war’’ against the Kanchi mutt and asking the Central government to take the matter up with the state authorities. The delegation also said that the Shankaracharya should be shifted out of Vellore jail and interned in some guest house, since he is an accused and ‘‘not a criminal’’.The delegation included L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and the six-member NDA team that had visited Kanchi recently. The PM, in turn, referred to the letter he had written to Tamil Nadu CM J. Jayalalithaa expressing concern about the treatment meted out to the Kanchi pontiff. He also read out Jayalalithaa’s reply, in which she assured the Centre that ‘‘proper facilities, treatments and courtesies’’ were being accorded to the Shankaracharya. Vajpayee, however, said that such reassurances notwithstanding, the actual situation was very different. He said there were ‘‘lots of differences’’ between the CM’s claims and reality, according to Balbir Punj, who later briefed the media on the NDA-PM meet.Punj said Manmohan Singh had assured the delegation that he shared their concern and that ‘‘he will do whatsoever is allowed and permitted within the Constitution and parameters of law’’.
