Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh on Wednesday said he had owned "moral responsibility" for the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, a statement widely seen as an attempt to assuage Muslim sentiments in the wake of tie up with Samajwadi Party.
"I want to make it clear that I had taken moral responsibility for the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 and had resigned from the post of chief ministership," he said in a statement that came amidst reports that Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP had demanded his apology.
The statement of Kalyan Singh, who recently left BJP and announced a tie-up with SP to defeat the saffron party, was released amidst reports that Yadav has been facing opposition from his Muslim supporters over the new alliance for the Lok Sabha elections.
Muslims can never forgive Kalyan for his "role" in the demolition, Muslim clerics belonging to institutions like Darul Uloom Deoband were believed to have told SP leaders who went to meet them.
Kalyan Singh was the chief minister of the BJP government at the time of demolition and his government was also dismissed by the Central government immediately. He was sentenced and jailed for a day for contempt of court for not keeping the promise of protecting the monument.
Singh, the Hindutva-posterboy at the height of Ramjanambhoomi movement, on Wednesday said he believed that everyone has a right to be proud of his faith.
"While Muslims have a right to be proud of Islam, Hindus have equal right to be proud of their Hindutva. It's unfortunate that to realise their political ambitions some people are creating fissures among these two faiths," he said, adding that everyone's right to belief should be protected.
"But now social forces will expose this conspiracy (of dividing the society)", Singh said.
He said that he has entered into "friendship" with Yadav and it was not a "political alliance".
"In friendship conditions are not imposed. Therefore, there are no conditions in our friendship," Singh said.
Stating that there were four objectives of his friendship with Mulayam, Singh said that the prime objective was to prevent BJP from assuming power at the centre and to ruin its chances.
The other objective was to implement principle of social justice, he said, adding "that means to ensure respectable and transparent participation of downtrodden in government, system and politics".
The third objective, he said was to rid the people of terror unleashed by the Bahujan Samaj Party government in the state under which the common people were a harassed lot.
Another objective of the "friedship" was to "establish Samajwadi Party government" in the Vidhan Sabha polls in the state.
"I am happy that to fulfill these objectives my friendship with Mulayam is being appreciated and welcomed by the people, especially those who want to ruin BJP", he said.
Earlier, Singh claimed that Muslims did not see him as anti-minority and that he had never discriminated against them during his tenure as chief minister.
"Letters and phone calls are coming in hordes not just from Hindus but also from Muslims who have hailed my decision to quit the BJP and the coming together with Mulayam Singh Yadav," he said.
He also claimed that he was never opposed to Muslims and had worked for the welfare of all.
