Akilesh Yadav red-flags VHP yatra

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Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s meeting with Ashok Singhal and other Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders has apparently not gone down well with Muslims.
The Muslim leadership has not only turned down proposals for negotiation on the Babri case and has also vehemently opposed the proposal to restart the 84 Kosi Parikrama.
Unnerved by the Muslim response, the Akhilesh Yadav government on Monday announced that it was denying permission to the VHP to hold it 84 Kosi Parikrama, scheduled to begin later this month.
Principal home secretary R.M. Srivastava and DGP Devraj Nagar told reporters on Monday that the yatra could disturb communal harmony in the state. “The original 84 Kosi Parikrama is held in April and we will not allow any new tradition in this regard,” the two officials said and added that if the VHP insisted on taking out the yatra, they would be prevented form doing so.
The VHP leaders had met chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday to seek permission and security for the yatra.
Senior advocate Zafaryab Jilani, who is also a senior member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and its committee on Babri Mosque, also met Mulayam Singh Yadav and asserted that there was no scope for any negotiations on the issue since the matter was already pending before the Supreme Court.
The Muslim leaders have termed the VHP leaders’ meeting with SP leaders as “uncalled for”.
Singhal and other VHP leaders, after their meeting with the Samajwadi leaders, had claimed that they had asked Mulayam Singh Yadav to negotiate for an out-of-court settlement on the Ram temple issue since the matter was taking long in the Supreme Court.
“We have told Yadav and he has agreed that there would be no change in the status quo situation in Ayodhya and talks, at this stage, will not serve any purpose,” he said.
Maulana Qasim Rasool Ilyas, another senior member of the AIMPLB, was even more assertive when eh said, “The Board is not interested in any further negotiations and will wait for the final judicial verdict.”
The Muslim leaders had also opposed the VHP’s proposed yatra.
The 84-kosi yatra, proposed by the VHP between August 25 and September 13, was scheduled to pass through the five districts of Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Gonda, Basti and Bahraich and cover a 300 km route.
It was being regarded as the VHP’s biggest public movement after the ‘purna aahuti mahayagya’ in 2002 and was expected to drum up support for the Ram temple issue during the 20-day affair.