Saints call meet in October to draft action plan on Ayodhya issue

A high-powered steering committee of Hindu saints called the Ucchadhikar Samiti will meet in Delhi in the first week of October to draft an action plan for the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya even as it becomes clear that the legal route will not immediately facilitate this .

According to functionaries in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), there is “disappointment” that a legal decision on the issues is “unlikely” to be announced anytime soon; and the saints have now been mandated to come up with an alternate plan of action.

The VHP, which has been the pivotal organisation driving the campaign to construct a Ram Temple at the site, where the Babri Masjid once stood and was demolished in 1992, had pinned its hopes on the Supreme Court delivering a judgment that would be “acceptable to all sections.”

“There was expectation that the outgoing chief justice would deliver a judgment before he demits office on October 2; with that unlikely to happen, it has been decided to let the saints take a call,” said a functionary who asked not to be identified. That’s because, in the course of arguments, the three judge bench headed by the chief justice that is hearing the case first decided to see whether a five-judge bench should consider whether a mosque is integral to Islam (as ruled by the apex court itself in 1994). The actual title dispute will be heard later.

While VHP functionaries will attend the meeting, there is no confirmation on whether RSS functionaries will also be present.

VHP working president Alok Kumar confirmed the meeting. He said that while day-to-day hearings were going on in the case pertaining to conspiracy charges against senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others in the demolition of Babri Masjid, the case pertaining to the construction of the temple is still pending.

NEWDELHI: