Advani to visit temple today

The terrorist attack on the Ram janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya has once again brought the issue to the forefront on national politics. The Bharatiya Jan-ata Party's (BJP) reaction signals that this may be the emotional issue that it had been looking for to raise itself from the morass of infighting it had fallen into.

BJP chief LK Advani described the attack as "heinous" and yet could not but acknowledge that it had brought the makeshift structure back into limelight. After his return from Guwahati, he is expected to visit Ayodhya tomorrow.

Senior leaders of the BJP held a meeting as soon as the news of the attack broke out, the ongoing Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS) meet in Surat where the fate of Advani was to be "decided" was relegated to the background.

Senior BJP Jaswant Singh later demanded the resignation of Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who also holds the home portfolio in the state.

Singh described the attack on the makeshift temple in Ayodhya an "attack on the Hindu faith".

The party announced a nation-wide protest tomorrow against the attack and called for a UP bandh.

Criticising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the BJP leader said his officials were making statements on his behalf although he should have done so himself.

He said the attack could take place only because of the "laxity" in security and because "the United Progressive Alliance government has in the last one year created a mindset that anything related to the Hindu faith can be ignored".

"The government has to explain why this intelligence failure took place, why the director-general of UP police reduced security at the site over the last few days," he said.

Asked whether the incident might affect relations with Pakistan, Singh said "unless the identity of the attackers is found out by the government and shared with citizens, I would not like to comment on this". But the government had "adopted a flexible and wrong attitude towards terrorism," he added.

The BJP leader claimed that the Centre seemed to be speaking in two voices on the attack. "While the home minister is saying the Centre has asked for information on the attack, a minister of state is saying it was a security lapse," the BJP leader said.

The BJP meeting was attended by Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, VK Malhotra, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sushma Swaraj besides others.

The RSS on its part displayed a balanced and low volume protest against the attack, probably keeping in mind what happened in the aftermath of the Godhra train incident. "We condemn the attack, and we hope that people all over the country will join us in protest, in the most peaceful way they can," said Ram Madhav, RSS spokesman.