After snapping ties with Kalyan Singh, the Samajwadi Party has decided to revive an issue close to its heart — the Babri Masjid demolition.

On December 6, the 17 th anniversary of the demolition, SP will launch a campaign to ‘inform’ Muslims about the injustice meted out by successive Congress regimes against the minorities, party general secretary Amar Singh announced on Tuesday, speaking at a function held to honour Abu Asim Azmi, SP MLA in Maharashtra, for defying the MNS diktat and taking the oath of membership in Hindi.

Azmi, who will lead the campaign by addressing public meetings at selected places in the state, said the SP would settle for nothing less than the reconstruction of Babri Masjid at the original site, as promised by the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in 1992.

“If there is rule of law in India, then the Babri Masjid should be reconstructed. Then (one might) proceed in the court to establish whether a temple existed at that site before the demolition on December 6, 1992,” Azmi said. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav recounted how his government had protected the Babri Masjid in 1990 at the height of the Kar Sewa agitation by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Amar Singh said, “The Congress had promised to reconstruct the Babri Masjid and the promise was made by none other then Prime Minister PV Narsihma Rao. What prevents the Congress from fulfilling its promise?”

“I know the Congress will offer the argument that the case is sub judice. If the court can hold hearings on a day-to-day basis in the dispute over the sharing of gas between the Ambani brothers, why can’t hearings in the Babri case be conducted in a similar manner? Why has this issue been pending in court for the last 20 years?” asked Amar Singh. “The Congress should tell the nation when it will reconstruct the Babri Masjid.”

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