New Delhi, Dec 14: The Lok Sabha today rejected an Opposition censure motion after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapyee declared that his Government would abide by the court verdict on the Ayodhya issue but not before a key ally rapped him for his controversial remarks and virtually threatened to abstain from voting on the motion.All the allies, including those which had reservations over Vajpayee's controversial remarks on the Ram temple construction, backed the Government to throw out the censure motion moved by Congress member S Jaipal Reddy 291 to 179 votes. BSP's 14 members abstained.The motion had demanded removal of three ministers chargesheeted in the Babri Masjid demolition case and criticised the Prime Minister for coming to their defence.In his 50-minute speech, Vajpayee defended his statement that the Ram temple movement was an expression of national sentiment and compared it to a similar statement made by late Rajendra Prasad in the context of reconstruction of Somnath Temple in the 1950s. "Nobody objected to it then. Similar is the feeling associated with the Ram temple," he said seeing nothing wrong with that statement.He also rejected the demand for resignation of the chargesheeted ministers including L K Advani saying the question did not arise as they had not committed ny "common crime" nor did law require it.Vajpayee accused the Opposition of misinterpreting his remarks that there were only two solutions to the temple-masjid controversy - one through court verdict and the other through mutual agreement between Hindus and Muslims."There is no third way. I had only said this in reply to media pressure but wrong meaning is being given to it," he said dismissing allegations that he made the remarks under pressure from Sangh Parivar with an eye on upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.Not satisfied with "lack of a categorical" statement fromt the Prime Minister on the temple dispute, a key ally Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee left the House along with her party colleagues. She was soon closetted with another ally TDP leader K Yerran Naidu in her ministerial chamber even as the lobbies were being cleared for voting a division on the motion.Sensing trouble, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan and another party MP Kirit Somaiyya scampered to Banerjee's room and persuaded the Trinamool contingent to return to the House and vote for the Government.The Prime Minister's categorical remarks that the Government would respect the court verdict came after Trinamool chief whip Sudip Bandopadhyay sought a specific clarification from Vajpayee on the issue.In his short reply, Reddy, the mover of the motion, cautioned the NDA partners that the BJP would only implement the Sangh Parivar agenda and that they should have no illusions about it.Reddy said the Prime Minister had evaded several questions raised by the Opposition on his remarks made last week and that the "confusion is now worse confounded".He warned BJP's allies that BJP was only one of the tentacles of the Parivar octopus which would rope in everyone in the coalition.Reddy rejected Vajpayee's contention that there was no need for the ministers to resign simply because they were chargesheeted and said by such a logic there would have been no resignation in independent India from T T Krishnamachari to now.He also said that if Government had agreed to the censure motion discussion on the first day, there would have been no deadlock of Parliament.
