Liberhan commission report a 'political document': Uma Bharti

Terming the Liberhan commission report as a "political document", the Bharatiya Jan Shakti national president Uma Bharti on Tuesday appealed to BJP leader LK Advani to steer the country and political parties in resolving the protracted Ajodhya dispute instead of keeping the issue frozen. She however refrained from making any comment on whether she intended to return to her parent political organisation.

Bharti, indicted by the commission in its report, said she will support Advani in any effort that seeks a permanent solution to the issue and paves way for the construction of Ram Mandir at the disputed site in the best interest of the country.

"This issue needs to be resolved immediately for the country to come back to main political agenda." She said she would also meet the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal on Wednesday and appeal to him to make efforts for an early resolution.

Talking to reporters at Nagpur on her way to Bhopal from Wardha, Uma Bharti said the responsibility of the report's leak should be fixed at the earliest and the guilty punished.

"This is the right time to resolve this frozen issue," Bharti said. "I wish the political game on an issue of deep importance to the Hindus of this country be stopped."

Political parties should convince the Muslim community to allow the construction of a Ram Mandir, she said. "Ayodhya is to the Hindus, " she said, "what Mecca is to the Muslims." The site, she said, is not of any big religious importance to Muslims.

The former BJP leader who was among the leaders to spearhead the Kar-Seva that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid owned a full moral responsibility for what happened in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

"It was on my call that people had congregated," she said. But the structure, she said, would have remained in tact had the administration given thousands of volunteers permission to do Kar Seva.

Bharti said, "an undue delay in judicial verdict on who the custodian of the disputed land is (which is yet awaited), an insensitive bureaucracy and minority politics contributed to the Babri Masjid demolition."

Reflecting on the sequence of events that led to the demolition of the mosque, she said the then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao did well in not sending the paramilitary troops immediately to the site. "Thousands of people would have died had he sent the troops and had there been a firing," she said.

"I salute Rao that he sent the troops only when the Kar Sevaks had dispersed from the demolished site." Condemning the commission for wasting crores of rupees of the public exchequer in giving a mere "general assessment", Bharti said this report could have been readied within a month of the demolition. "It is more of a gospel."