New Delhi, Dec 09: A day after BJP president Rajnath Singh termed the Liberhan Commission report a “political document aimed at character assassination of party leaders”, Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha took the argument forward, saying that “her party dismissed the report, lock stock and barrel”.
Sushma’s speech was primarily devoted to how “the commission could not unearth any conspiracy in the Babri demolition” even after employing the CBI and Intelligence agencies. Adopting a strident stand, she also said “all of them (party MPs and other leaders) were ready to be punished for the demolition, if needed”.
After Rajnath on Monday stopped short of taking RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s line on the demolition (Bhagwat had said his organisation had no regrets over the demolition), Sushma’s speech ended with an exhortation that “a dialogue between the two communities was imperative to resolve the crisis”.
“The commission had been asked to submit its report in three months. It, however , took 17 years and 48 extensions, which is 6,036 days, to complete the report. Who wrote this report? And who got this written? We learn that Justice Liberhan had a long wish-list,” she said as she lambasted the commission for a clean chit to former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, while “there were as many as 22 adverse entries against Atal Bihari Vajpayee”.
Arguing that even the mandatory notice under Section 8B had not been issued to Vajpayee, she questioned Liberhan’s flip-flop on Vajpayee’s name, in his interviews after the report’s findings became public.
She also cited factual inaccuracies in the report. “This report is hardly a judicial document (written by a retired judge). We want to know who has written it. There are errors like quotes of Jinnah attributed to Deendayal Upadhyay,” she said.
Sushma said the contents of the report could “create communal tensions”. “In a separate chapter, Muslim organisations have been termed good for nothing. The Muslim populace has been incited through this report. This has the seeds to create communal strife in the country,” she added.
–Agencies