BJP sees ploy, won’t disrupt Parliament

NEW DELHI: Even though the findings of the Liberhan Commission, constituted by the P V Narasimha Rao government to look into the circumstances leading to the Babri Masjid demolition, have not really come as a surprise, the timing of its leakage has caught most political observers unawares.

It comes at a time when BJP is already under the impact of a severe infighting among top leaders and a string of electoral reverses. There is a feeling that the panel’s findings were leaked to a newspaper to widen the faultlines within the party, and the Sangh Parivar in general.

The cadre morale within BJP has hit an all-time low, and the abrupt disclosure of the Liberhan Commission report, which raps the party brass for its failure to prevent the demolition, could have been aimed at adding to turmoil within the party.

The BJP leadership, which took stock of the likely impact of the unscheduled appearance of the commission’s report at a series of informal meetings here on Monday, appeared to be mindful of this strategy. It felt that the report had been deliberately leaked by the government to prevent the Opposition from joining hands on issues other than those pertaining to Hindutva and also to prevent them from asking uncomfortable questions on the great ‘Jharkhand loot’ by Madhu Koda and his associates in the run-up to the assembly elections in the state, as also on the 2G spectrum allocation scandal and the phenomenal increase in food prices.

The Manmohan Singh government’s decision to restore status-quo in sugar-cane pricing had amply demonstrated the effectiveness of the Opposition’s strategy to bury their differences on issues of common interest. The government, BJP leaders feel, had been unnerved by this show of opposition unity, and the leakage of the Liberhan Commission report was calculated to put roadblocks in this process.

``This is a planned leak. It is a motivated leak. The first motivation for leaking the report is the unity in opposition on the sugarcane price issue which the government wanted to break. This unity would have been on display on price rise and other issues too,’’ BJP parliamentary party spokesman Sushma Swaraj said here later in the day.
The senior BJP leader further alleged that the government wanted to divert attention of the people from the Opposition’s plans of raising the Koda and 2G spectrum allocation scams in Parliament.

``Thirdly, the government wanted to influence the Jharkhand elections where the first phase of polling will be held on November 25,’’ she added.

The BJP leader argued that since there were just two copies of the report — one with the author of the report and the other with the home ministry, if the government did not come clear on how the report was leaked, BJP would not hesitate to point its fingers at the home ministry.

Mindful of the pitfalls of ``walking into the trap laid by the government,’’ BJP is not likely to press for the tabling of the Liberhan Commission report when the two Houses of Parliament resume their proceedings on Tuesday. Instead, it’s likely to be business as usual in the two Houses.

The saffron party had successfully stalled proceedings in the two Houses on Monday, and there were talks that its MPs would go in for a repeat performance on Tuesday.

``We want to be seen as a constructive Opposition party, and hence would focus our attack on the government’s shortcomings and failures,’’ a senior BJP leader explained.

A formal call on the issue will be taken at a meeting of the BJP’s parliamentary party on Tuesday.