Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan criticised the Congress party for its stance on the Babri Masjid demolition, after several key leaders of the party welcomed the foundation laying ceremony of the new Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday.
The Chief Minister was responding to a question posed by a reporter during the daily press meet on the COVID-19 situation. Pinarayi alleged that the Congress had always ‘peddled soft Hindutva’ and ‘that the party remained silent and bore witness to the mosque being razed’.
“When it comes to secularism, if Congress had had a concrete stand, India would not have come to this state. With Rahul and Priyanka’s stances too, I don’t think there is anything new,” he said. Priyanka Gandhi, who is a party in-charge in Uttar Pradesh where Ayodhya is located, had caused a stir with a tweet on Wednesday endorsing the ceremony which read, ‘Ram is with everyone’.
Explaining why he believed the Congress bore silent witness to the demolition of the mosque, Pinarayi said that when Hindus were allowed to pray inside a part of the mosque in 1986, as per the order of a district judge in Faizabad, it was the Congress party who was ruling at the Centre. Later, when idol worship was permitted on the site too, it was the Congress party at the Centre, the CM added.
“When the idol turned into a mandapam and when the Kar Sevaks marched up to the mosque too, it was Congress at the Centre. Finally, when the mosque was razed by a Hindutva mob in 1992, it was the Congress party led by then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao at the Centre. What is happening now is just the natural progression of what we saw then,” Pinarayi said.
He stated that the Indian Union Muslim League, which is part of the Congress-led United Democratic Front or UDF in Kerala, had lent support to the party during these times.
“All of this is part of our country’s history. It is better to not think too much about this,” the CM concluded.
With Priyanka Gandhi’s tweet on the Ayodhya temple ceremony, Kerala Congress leaders were in a pickle as senior IUML leaders including ET Muhammad and Basheer MP expressed reservations against the UP in-charge’s stance on the issue.
The IUML, which is one of Congress’s oldest allies, later passed a resolution which called Priyanka’s message ‘inappropriate and untimely’.
“The Congress is a secular party. We are upset with statements of some of its leaders including that of Priyanka Gandhi, which we feel are inappropriate and untimely,” the resolution read.
On Wednesday, the ground breaking ceremony for the building of a new Ram temple at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya took place. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ayodhya on Wednesday where he laid a 40 kilogram brick symbolising the beginning of the construction of the temple. He addressed spiritual leaders in the city following the ceremony.