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Ram Vilas Vedanti, a former Bharatiya Janata Party MP and an accused in the Babri mosque demolition case, on Friday claimed that it was he and not the BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani who incited the frenzied karsevaks to pull down the disputed shrine.
"I demolished and got demolished the disputed structure, the ruin that stood there. The accusations against L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia are wrong," he said.
Vedanti's remarks came two days after the Supreme Court resurrected the conspiracy charge against Advani, Joshi and union minister Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Vedanti said, in fact, Advani, Joshi and Scindia even took the microphone from him and tried to persuade the karsevaks to come down from atop the structure and leave. They even made the plea in English, he later told a TV news channel.
Vedanti said he, Mahant Avaidyanath, also a former BJP MP, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal exhorted the karsevaks to raze the disputed structrue. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.
He told India Today TV channel he was prepared to be "hanged" for the cause of Ram temple.
When asked was his claim an effort by him to "derail" the trial against BJP veterans, Vedanti said," I have spoken about this earlier too."