New Delhi:
The ghost of the Babri Masjid demolition is back to haunt the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).
Angry scenes rocked Parliament on Monday, after the Liberhan Commission's report, was leaked. The report, which investigates the demolition, severely indicts some of the BJP's top leaders.
(Read: What is the Liberhan Commission?)"The Executive, Political Class and Bureaucracy took no effectivemeasures to prevent the demolition or to arrest the perpetrators" -nobody is spared in the opening of the 900-page Liberhan Report.
NDTV has exclusive access to the report, scheduled to be tabled in Parliament next month. The report says the entire build-up to the demolition was meticulously planned. And there was nothing to show that the BJP's top leaders were either unaware of what was going on, or innocent of any wrongdoing.
The report then goes on to describe the demolition of the Babri Masjid as "one of the most abhorrent acts in the history of the nation."
What is going to be most damaging for the party is that the report indicts its top leadership of being fully aware of "the tailor-made exercise" that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
The Liberhan Report also accuses the BJP of making "false promises" that the Babri Masjid would not be demolished, to the central government, led by Narasimha Rao.
(Read: 'BJP's 'false promises misled Central govt')The report says the central government's failure was that it was "day-dreaming", and believed the BJP's assurances.
(Read: Report goes easy on Narasimha Rao, then PM)The report also says that if the BJP did not know about what its kar sevaks were about to do, then this only proves that the BJP is little more than a "frontal organization" for its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). It says the BJP realised the potential of "manipulating religious ground".
Then UP chief minister Kalyan Singh has come in for particularly severe criticism - the report says he refused paramilitary forces from the Centre till after the demolition.
The Babri Mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992, and the Liberhan Commission was set up 10 days after the incident.
The panel submitted its report on June 30 this year, after 17 years and 48 extensions.
The Left, the SP and the BJP would like to see the report tabled in Parliament without any more delay.
But the contents of the report need to be verified before it is made public.