It could, of course, be just a coincidence. But Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta's presence in Ayodhya a day after expelled leader Kalyan Singh stated that his new party will not espouse the Ayodhya temple issue seemed to indicate the BJP's lack of confidence in itself. Gupta made it a point to state at Ayodhya that the Ram temple may or may not be on the agenda of the Central government, but it is on the agenda of the BJP.As if on cue, Uma Bharati, Union minister of tourism and old Ayodhya activist, also let it be known that the Ayodhya issue was ``very much alive''. The BJP insists that Kalyan Singh's departure will not affect it at all, especially since Singh seems to have consciously chosen caste rather than the Hindutva card to propel him onward. If this is the case, then the sudden burst of enthusiasm for the temple issue displayed by sections of the party leadership does not quite square with such a stance. It would have made more sense for the party to keep its own house in order byoffering good, clean governance and watch Kalyan Singh trip himself up rather than react immediately to his utterances. This way it leaves itself open to the charge that it is Singh who is setting the party's agenda by default.The fact is that the BJP, as part of the NDA, has a well-stated public stand on the Ayodhya temple issue, a stand that has been reiterated in Prime Minister Vajpayee's regular assurances that the temple, along with other contentious issues, has been relegated to the backburner. To bring it every now and then to the frontburner for reasons of expediency does more than expose the ambivalences within the party, it could seriously undermine its relationship with coalition partners. In fact, on Monday, both the Telugu Desam Party and the Trinamool Congress lost no time in berating the government over the issue in Parliament, with the TC member even baldly reminding the BJP that his party is in NDA on the basis of an assurance by the BJP that controversial issues would be kept out.ThePrime Minister himself acknowledged that some of his party colleagues have been te-mpted to talk loosely on the issue and that they should not do so. That Vajpayee was constrained to make this observation in Parliament does not speak well of party discipline within the BJP. If Vajpayee does indeed want to convey to the wo-rld that the party does not have a ``hidden age-nda'' on Ayodhya, he must ensure that his colleagues are also similarly convinced and appear to be so. The fact is that the nation has lost a great deal of time, energy and goodwill over the vexed temple issue.Would it be too much to expect the party that had put it on the forefront of the nation's politics to now work towards putting that divisive legacy behind it at least as long as it is part of a coalition government? After all, the NDA had come to power in the last General Election on the express assurance that the Ram mandir issue was not on the agenda.
