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| Sunday, 3 April 2005 |
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BJP to reignite temple campaign BOMBAY, Saturday (AFP) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Mahajan said Friday that a controversial campaign to build a temple on the ruins of a destroyed mosque would be reignited. "We will rake up the issue again and go back to the public to garner support for the temple," said Mahajan. "It is our most desired but unachieved dream and we regret not having built the Ram temple at Ayodhya yet." BJP will mark 25 years of its birth on April 6 and the temple campaign is likely to take center stage at a national convention of the party in New Delhi. "In 25 years we achieved many things like making India a nuclear power, a stronger economy and improving relations with Pakistan... but the most important dream of a temple at Ram's birthplace has not yet been achieved," said Mahajan. The BJP had in the early 1990s garnered massive support by campaigning to have a temple to the Hindu god Ram built on the site of the 16th century Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya. The campaign led to the demolition in 1992 by Hindu zealots of the mosque, sparking massive Hindu-Muslim riots across the country in which over 2,000 people were killed. |
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