Naidu eats his words on Ayodhya

NEW DELHI, AUG 26: Hardly 24 hours after he made the controversial remarks about his party's stand on the Ayodhya temple, BJP General Sec...

NEW DELHI, AUG 26: Hardly 24 hours after he made the controversial remarks about his party’s stand on the Ayodhya temple, BJP General Secretary M Venkiah Naidu today made attempted to swallow his words.

Naidu had 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 an election programme on Star News, Naidu had said: “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.” Today, Naidu said that he did not say so. The Star News channel said it stood by the report. It said that Naidu’s statement was on the tape and could not be refuted.

Naidu told reporters that his party had put a moratorium on contentious issues like Ayodhya Ram Temple, abrogation of Article 370 only for this elections and would review its decision before the next elections. Naidu today claimed that he referred only to the ongoing elections whenhe said the party would not raise the Ayodhya issue even if it won 370 seats in Parliament on its own.

In the TV programme, recorded yesterday, Naidu had said that as far as the BJP was concerned, Ayodhya was a “settled” issue. Asked what he meant when he said that Ayodhya was a settled issue, Naidu explained, “No party is raising it anymore. It is no longer the agenda of any party.”

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 had said: “We are not concerned with the VHP or the kar sevaks. I am speaking for the BJP.” Today, however, Naidu spoke consensus. He advocated the need for evolving a consensus on contentious issues.