IANS

New Delhi, Dec 8: Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of exploiting the Ayodhya issue for political purposes, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid Monday said the party should regret orchestrating the issue.

Participating in the debate in the Lok Sabha on the Liberhan Commission report, Khurshid, Congress MP from Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh, also targeted the Samajwadi Party for intermittently seeking support of Kalyan Singh, a former BJP leader who was chief minister when the Babri mosque was demolished in 1992.

Referring to the Sangh Parivar, he said it had been speaking in different voices on demolition. "Some regret it, some celebrate it, some say it should have been done earlier," he said, adding that it was not a quarrel between Hindus and Muslims.

Khurshid said that Islam also had a concept similar to Ram Rajya which entails keeping away from any form of injustice.

Defending the Liberhan report which had given clean chit to then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Khurshid said: "Our mistake was that we believed you (BJP)."

He said the report had dealt with issues minutely keeping in view the fact that the Ayodhya dispute was before the courts.

Khurshid, who had to face interruptions from the BJP benches, said Kalyan Singh was like a "Hanuman" to the saffron party but it was refusing to take him back now.

He said that BJP's campaign was neither for Lord Ram's "janamasthan (birth place)" nor for "janambhoomi (land of birth)" but for attaining power, which the party has lost now.

"Where are you now," he said, referring to Congress winning Faizabad seat in the Lok Sabha elections. Ayodhya is in Faizabad district.

He said the BJP should have talked of the mosque along side the temple and no one had the right to question the patriotism of Muslims.

"We have learnt Hindu religion from Mahatma Gandhi," he said.