With the BJP threatening a countrywide agitation and Congress president Sonia Gandhi moving to do damage-control, the Government, after waiting a full 24 hours, admitted that it made a mistake. And decided to withdraw “objectionable” paragraphs in its affidavit in the Supreme Court which, while defending the Sethusamudram project, questioned the existence of “characters, events” in the Ramayana.

Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj called a press conference to declare: “The government admits its mistake and wants to remove any doubt whatsoever that it does not believe in the existence of Ram. The existence of Ram cannot be doubted. As Himalaya is Himalaya, Ganga is Ganga, Ram is Ram. Ram is an integral part of our ethos and cannot be alienated from our hearts.”

He said a “wrong impression had been created in the minds of people” about the contents of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) affidavit and, therefore, a supplementary affidavit would be filed on Friday in the Supreme Court.

Bhardwaj’s announcement came a day after it became public that the ASI told the court that the Adam’s Bridge/Ram Setu formation cannot be called “a man-made structure” and that “contents of the Valmiki Ramayana, the Ramcharitamanas by Tulsidas and other mythological texts... cannot be said to be historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters, or the occurrence of the events, depicted therein.”

The affidavit came under immediate attack from the BJP which called it “blasphemous”. BJP leader L K Advani met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bhardwaj at a dinner last night and told them that “the highly objectionable affidavit should be withdrawn.”

... contd.