LUCKNOW: With the next Lok Sabha elections inching closer, the Ram Janmabhoomi issue has been resurrected and how. Last week’s fracas following Congress leader and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal’s plea in the Supreme Court that the hearing in Ayodhya title suit be deferred till 2019 general election, and the perceptible shift of some so-called secular parties towards soft Hindutva of late, has once again brought to the fore the fact that for political parties of all hues, the Ram temple issue is not a matter of faith but a blank cheque to be encashed every poll season.
Sibal, and other lawyers representing Muslim appellants, are open about the fact that they were opposing the hearing in the matter at this juncture because the Ram temple was part of the BJP poll manifesto. They, in fact, openly alleged that the case was being pushed for early hearing only because Ayodhya temple was on BJP’s agenda.
The SC has started day-to-day hearing on a clutch of 13 pleas challenging Allahabad High Court’s order of September 2010 over the title suit of 2.77 acre land of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid complex. The HC had awarded one-third land each to the Nirmohi Akhara, Ram Lalla Virajman and the Sunni Central Waqf Board.
Sibal’s submission before the SC, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition, has again heated up the political atmosphere. In 1980s, the temple movement was largely in the hands of Hindu Mahasabha and VHP till the BJP jumped on the mandir bandwagon, giving it a bigger political dimension as well as reaping electoral dividends — jumping from two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 to 85 in 1989.
Before the 1989 LS polls, the then PM Rajiv Gandhi had, in a bid to counter allegations of appeasing Muslim hardliners in the Shah Bano case, allowed shilanyas (foundation-laying) of the proposed temple in Ayodhya. The move backfired and the Congress’ banishment from power in UP continues till date.
In October 1990, the then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s order of firing on karsevaks in Ayodhya catapulted him to the position of minorities’ champion and started a wave of competitive secularism among political parties.
However, BJP’s big wins in the 2104 Lok Sabha and the 2017 Assembly elections are gradually bringing about a change in minority-oriented politics.
Now, both SP and Congress leaders have no qualms about showing their Hindu credentials, something which they seldom did in the past. While Rahul Gandhi went temple hopping during his Gujarat election campaign, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is proudly showcasing the Krishna statue that he is going to install in his village Saifai.