NEW DELHI, 8 August 2005 — The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) yesterday snubbed BJP President Lal Krishna Advani’s attempts to revive the Ayodhya issue, saying the temple issue was a “vote-catching device” for politicians and it did not trust any political party.
“For politicians, the temple is a vote-catching device. But for us it is a question of faith”, VHP Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore told reporters here. He, however, did not mention the BJP or Advani.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is understood to have advised VHP leaders not to make personal attacks on Hindu leaders or criticize other Hindu organizations, including the BJP, in public.
Kishore was responding to a question on whether VHP would support or seek the support of the BJP in its agitation for the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, in the wake of Advani’s recent assertions.
“We have no trust in any political party. They are all on par. We will carry on with the agitation on our own,” Kishore, a well-known critic of Advani, said.
In the past, the VHP accused the BJP of playing the temple card to come to power and attributed its debacle in last year’s parliamentary elections to the party “abandoning” Hindutva, or Hindu ethos.
The RSS had taken strong exception to the “behavioral misdemeanor” of VHP leaders, including its firebrand Secretary-General Praveen Togadia, against Advani and had advised them to exercise restraint while making statements.
Declining to comment on the recent ideological controversy between Advani and Hindu organizations, the VHP leader said the differences, if any, were on principle and ideology.
“Personally, we all enjoy good relations,”, Kishore said, recalling that the BJP chief had held a meeting at VHP’s Karsewakpuram campus in Ayodhya when he visited the town after a terrorist attack.
He said the Babri Masjid demolition case, in which he was an accused along with Advani, would “serve to strengthen the Ayodhya movement.”
Asked whether the VHP would support BJP candidates in the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar, Kerala, West Bengal and other states, he said, “We will support pro-Hindu candidates constituency-wise. There will not be any general direction to cadres to support any particular political party. The stress will be on candidates.”
Elaborating on VHP’s Ayodhya agitation, he said six ‘dharam sansads’ (religious assemblies) would be organized at Kurukshetra, Tirupati, Allahabad, Puri, Guwahati and a town in Gujarat between January and March next year.
Kishore also hoped that a case pertaining to the party’s claim to the disputed site in Ayodhya would be decided by the Allahabad High Court in its favor by the end of next year.
While the VHP was not against a negotiated settlement to the issue, it would not initiate any move in this regard, he said.
