Chidambaram should quit for Liberhan report leak: Jaya

CHENNAI: AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa on Thursday demanded Home Minister P Chidambaram's resignation, holding him responsible for the "leak" of selective portions of the Liberhan report on Babri Masjid demolition, and said the Commission's findings were only of "academic interest".

"The only copy of the Liberhan report available with the government was with the Union Home Minister. Obviously, he is fully and solely responsible for the leak. He has to go. He should go," she said in a statement in Chennai.

The "leak" had benefitted the Centre, Jayalalithaa said, adding that the attention has now shifted from issues like price rise, sugarcane price ordinance, Spectrum allocation scandal and Mullaperiyar dam row involving Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"The only beneficiary of the leak is the Union government, which has moved from the mode of an apprehensive and embarrassed defender to that of a vocal aggressor. This makes it a strategic leakage; a deliberately engineered leakage," she said.

After 17 years and 48 extensions, the report had only talked about politicisation of religion, but did not offer any solutions, she said, adding, "Crores of rupees had been spent for a report that will raise a lot of heat and dust without achieving any tangible results."

The findings were only of "academic interest," she said.