Encouraged by the Archaeological Survey of India report on the excavations carried out at the Ayodhya site, the entire RSS leadership, led by Sarsanghchalak K S Sudarshan, met Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani today and urged him to resolve the temple issue. They also asked him to make a fresh attempt to introduce the Cow Protection Bill in the next session of Parliament with adequate homework to ensure its adoption. The RSS leaders who met Advani for over an hour included general secretary Mohan Bhagwat, senior leader H V Seshadri and joint secretary Madan Das Devi. RSS spokesman Ram Madhav later told reporters: ‘‘It is quite natural. There’s a sense of expectancy across the country. The temple issue should move forward now that the ASI report points to all evidence of a temple.’’ He said the VHP, armed with the ASI report, would obviously plan a fresh movement for the construction of a temple at disputed site. ‘‘The BJP has to keep all this in mind.’’ The RSS leaders, according to sources, discussed the new situation in Uttar Pradesh with the return of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav as the state chief Minister. This, in the context of a renewed temple movement and past developments, opened up various possibilities. The RSS, sources maintained, felt it was imperative that a solution be found before the VHP built up the temple movement to a level where it would become difficult to control. The RSS leaders underlined the fact that temple opponents had ‘‘no case left’’ after the ASI report. It would not be out of place, they conveyed, to look for a legislative solution to the dispute. Madhav said the RSS favoured a consensus on Cow Protection Bill before its introduction in the next session of Parliament. The RSS feeling, the sources said, was that the Congress was not altogether averse to the proposal, but the Government needed to take it into confidence. Once Congress concerns were accommodated, the party could extend support to the Bill. In the meeting with Advani, the issue of co-ordination among various Sangh Parivar outfits during the Assembly elections, terrorist violence in J-K and the WTO summit at Cancun also came up for discussion.
