Rao govt had made wrong political judgement: PC

In an hour-long reply that was sought to be drowned by slogan-shouting BJP members angry over some remarks of a Congress member against Vajpayee,he asserted that the demolition was a “pre-planned and cold-blooded” act conducted by the Sangh Parivar and BJP leaders like L K Advani and M M Joshi cannot escape responsibility.

“False promises,lies to the Supreme Court,lies to the Central government and you create a situation in which unfortunately the government of the day made a wrong political judgement.

“Looking back,I can say it was a wrong political judgement. Mr Narasimha Rao paid the price for making the judgement. The Congress party paid a price for that political judgement,” Chidambaram said.

Chidambaram said the then UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh had “lied” and given “false promises” about protecting the disputed structure and regretted the Rao government had made a “wrong political judgment”.

“The promises held out by the BJP were completely false with the sole intention of misleading the Centre… The promises were to secure inaction of the Central government,to induce the Centre in a state of optimistic slumber,” Chidambaram said,adding the Congress had already paid for it.

BJP rejected the Liberhan report,saying it was a “political” document prepared by an “opportunist” to target some people and warned that it could create communal frenzy in the country. The party wanted the report to be scrapped “lock,stock and barrel”.

BJP President Rajnath Singh and Deputy leader of the party in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said the report was a “bundle of errors” and dared the government by declaring that its leaders “inside and outside Parliament” were ready for any punishment.

Chidambaram said he thought BJP and RSS would be remorseful after Liberhan report. “But they have no remorse,no shame.”

Amid chants of “shame,shame” by treasury benches,he said the plan to destroy the structure was “conceived” by the RSS and “collaborators played the role assigned to them”,while referring to BJP,VHP,Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena.