MP confronts Thackeray

MAY 26: Sena chief Bal Thackeray has been asked to clarify his call for the conversion of the site where the Babri Masjid stood in Ayodhya ...

MAY 26: Sena chief Bal Thackeray has been asked to clarify his call for the conversion of the site where the Babri Masjid stood in Ayodhya into a national monument.

Veteran MP Syed Shahabuddin has joined issue with him, and has demanded to know the status of the makeshift temple on the site if Thackeray’s wishes were to materialise. And whether history will be justified in turning an empty tract of land into a `national monument’ when the `monument’ that once stood there has been destroyed.

Addressing a press conference this afternoon, Shahabuddin expressed the apprehension that if Thackeray’s suggestion was accepted, there was every likelihood of there being two temples instead of one: the proposed large temple to replace the makeshift one, and the makeshift one itself.

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“If people had spoken of converting the original ruin of the Babri Masjid into a monument, the proposal would have had meaning. However, when the mosque itself has been destroyed, what happens to the claims of Muslims to rebuild it? ” Shahabuddin queried.

He was also critical of Chief Minister Manohar Joshi’s statement before the Srikrishna Commission, which is probing the post-Masjid demolition riots, that Maharashtra was ready to introduce a uniform civil code. “Uniformity does not mean unity. And it is laughable that parties who are for uniformity themselves speak of a separate code for each state,” Shahabuddin said.

However, his most startling suggestion, specially in the wake of earlier Muslim ire against the Congress vis-a-vis its role in the demolition of the mosque was that this party alone, helped in generous measure by the United Front (UF) constituents, could prevent a non-secular government from coming to power in the next elections.

To this end, he called upon both the UF and the Congress to consider working together on more equal terms perhaps by the latter joining the government to ensure stability in the Gujral government for the next four years.

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“Co-ordination between Prime Minister I K Gujral and the Congress president Sitaram Kesri alone is not enough. I am appealing to both parties to end their distance. The issue is not linked to the Muslim factor at all, though in several states the Muslims have no alternative but to support the Congress. And I have always held that the Congress is more secular than most other parties,” Shahabuddin said.

His primary concern for the moment, however, was proportional representation for all castes in Parliament in the wake of the ongoing debate on the women’s reservation bill. “There should be reservations in Parliament for Muslims as well as the OBCs, and there should be an incremental quota for women. This should be spread over the years, starting from 15 per cent now to a total of 50 per cent with an increase of five per cent each year as they become more politically active,” he said.

“However, those in a position of power are reluctant to do this. We all swear in the name of democracy, but we are not willing to practice it,” he regretted.

Shahabuddin also called upon the Bihar Governor to stop playing “the role of judge and advocate” in permitting the prosecution of Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav. He said he had warned the former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in 1994 about a state of financial emergency through scams in Bihar. “Three years later it has all come true. But the delay in the CM’s prosecution gives rise to the suspicion that politics is playing a role in protecting Laloo Prasad Yadav,” he added.