LUCKNOW: A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Saturday demanded that Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav should seek pardon for his comments that the Allahabad High Court's verdict on the Ayodhya dispute was based on belief and not legalities and evidences.
"His (Yadav's) comments are extremely unfortunate…He must seek pardon from the people of this country, particularly the natives of Ayodhya," said Vinay Katiyar, BJP national vice-president, Saturday while speaking to reporters in Faizabad district, some 150 km from Lucknow.
"On behalf of the residents of the holy Ayodhya city, I demand that Mulayam Singh must bow his head at the Ram Lalla (the makeshift temple at the disputed site) and seek pardon," he added.
Katiyar alleged that Yadav's comments are intended to solicit support from the minority community.
"It is a desperate attempt to win back the Muslims…It's disgraceful that Mulayam Singh is exploiting the issue for appeasement of Muslims," Katiyar said.
A special three-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench Thursday by a majority verdict ruled that the place where the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya stood, before it was razed by Hindu mobs in 1992, was indeed the birthplace of Hindu god Ram.
It also ruled that the entire disputed land in Ayodhya, a riverside temple town in Uttar Pradesh, should be divided among the Sunni Central Waqf Board, the Ram temple and the Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu sect and an original litigant in the case.