AYODHYA, DEC 7: A cold reception to the Sangh Parivar's Dharma Jagran Yatra ensured that the fifth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid passed off without any incident here.The week-long yatra which began from Karsevakpuram in Ayodhya on Friday, was meant to "awaken" the people to ``the need for a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre if they wanted the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya.''However, barely a few hundred people turned up at the ``big'' meetings planned by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders at Sringi Rishi Ashram on the banks of the Saryu river and in Gosainganj town. The turnout was even poorer at the dozen welcome meetings planned along the way.The VHP, however, tried to explain the poor public response to its ``deliberate strategy'' to keep things low key. ``We do not want to create problems for the BJP Government in Uttar Pradesh by unnecessarily exciting people'' said Mahant Paramhans Ram Chandra Das, convener of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust.Significantly, BJP leaders avoided the yatra. Tourism Minister Kalraj Mishra and his deputy Lalloo Singh, who also happens to be the local MLA, did not join the yatra despite being present in Ayodhya on Friday. Local MP Vinay Katiyar participated only in the yagna before the yatra and left for Punjab soon after.Similarly, none of the Muslim organisations raked up the issue this time. Some attribute this to their reluctance to divide people along communal lines just before elections because such a polarisation usually benefits the BJP.The only organisation to have given a call for an Ayodhya March from Delhi was Ali Sena. That its call had no mass support was evident when 12 Ali Sena workers, led by president S Chand, were arrested from a mosque in the temple town while trying to proceed towards the site today. Elsewhere in the state, there were protest rallies and marches. In Allahabad, six people were injured when Jai Shiv Sena workers threw stones at people during a procession in the Kareli area.
