AHMEDABAD/KARACHI, 6 June 2005 — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President L.K. Advani’s statement expressing regret at the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 was strongly criticized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) here yesterday, as Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav too waded into the BJP elder statesman with a ‘tongue in cheek’ retort of his own.

While VHP took exception to Advani’s statement on Babri Masjid, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said Advani’s utterances at the mausoleum of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah were from the core of his heart and blasted organizations like the VHP and RSS for their adverse reaction to Advani.

“Advani’s praise of Jinnah is his natural reaction toward Pakistan’s founder. All his earlier utterances against Pakistan seemed to be artificial,” said Lalu Prasad at a RJD function in Patna.

Blasting VHP and RSS for criticizing Advani, Lalu Prasad said, “They seem to have forgotten that Advani is a Pakistani by birth and how can he speak lies about his birthplace.”

Touring Pakistan, Advani had said earlier this week that the saddest day of his life was the day the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was demolished.

The VHP has criticized Advani’s statement and has demanded an apology from the BJP leader. It has also launched a mass campaign against Advani.

In Ahmedabad, which incidentally is a part of Advani’s constituency, banners were seen in many places and slogans were written on walls that targeted Advani in a strong language.

“Advani, jawab do: Pakistan ne kya khilaya-pilaya? (Advani, answer this — What food and drinks did Pakistan treat you with?, says one slogan.

Another one asks him, “Saat bar Somnath toota, kisne maafi maangi? Ayodhya mein toota wo mandir tha, phir kyun maafi maangi?” (The Hindu temple of Somnath was demolished seven times. Who apologized for it? What was demolished in Ayodhya was a temple, then why apologize for it?)

An SMS text message has also been doing the rounds in the state, stating, “Jootha khel, joothi baani: Hindu drohi hai Advani” (Foul game, foul language, Advani has wronged Hindus by turning traitor).

VHP leader Ashok Singhal also criticized Advani in Madras on Thursday, and demanded an apology from him.

“Wasn’t the partition of this country and Advani’s coming here (to India) as a refugee a more shameful event in his life than Dec. 6, 1992 (date of the Babri demolition)?” Pravin Togadia, international secretary of VHP asked in a statement.

“Nobody has apologized till today for the demolition of Hindu temples in Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya. What is Advani trying to prove by issuing such a statement in Pakistan?” he added.

Advani continues to make headlines in Pakistan but the English media yesterday chose to focus on the down-memory-lane aspect of his Karachi visit than his tributes to the country’s founder Jinnah.

The glowing tributes that Advani penned in the visitors’ book after going to Jinnah’s mausoleum Saturday were reproduced in full but more as the sub-text to the news reports in Karachi.

To the extent that even Dawn, the newspaper Jinnah founded, devoted only the last five paragraphs of a 17-paragraph story to the mausoleum visit, the focus of which was on the BJP leader’s visit to his alma mater and the India-Pakistan peace process.

The News, which normally reflects the Pakistani establishment’s line, was more fulsome in its coverage of the Advani visit.

“The young man born in Karachi who became an RSS organizer here in 1947, only to leave with hatred in his heart after Partition, has returned to his hometown for a brief visit,” it said in an editorial titled “Welcome home, Mr. Advani”.

The Nation carried, without comment, an 820-world article on Advani’s activities in Karachi, devoting just 110 words in a single paragraph to the visit to Jinnah’s tomb.

In a commentative piece on Advani’s visit to the Katasraj temple near Lahore, The Nation said: “Advani would do well to initiate the rebuilding of (the) Babri Masjid and invite (ruling Pakistan Muslim League chief Chaudhry) Shujaat Hussain to lay the foundation stone. That would be history.”

During the Thursday visit to the temple, considered the second holiest Hindu shrine of undivided Punjab, Hussain had asked Advani to inaugurate the rebuilding of the complex and to help restore other ancient temples, some of which were three to four thousand years old.