Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Brother Backs BJP on Babri Issue

The Bharatiya Janata Party campaign is drawing support from unexpected quarters ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, as Congress stalwart and former J&K chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s brother Ghulam Ali on Monday and expressed support for the Ram Mandir pledged to be built at Ayodhya by the NDA principal.

Barely four days after he joined the party, Ali said the demand to build the temple shrine a Ayodhya was justified and blamed lack of awareness among Muslim scholars for the continuing controversy.

Ali said that Islam does not allow prayers to be offered at a disputed site, before adding that the demand for a mosque to be built at the disputed site was unjustified.

He iterated that Mughal emperor Babar an invader who destroyed temples and not a spiritual leader.

“Woh mandir tha, hai, rehaega (It was a temple, it is a temple and it will remain a temple),” he was quoted as saying by the IBNLive website.

“The mandir-masjid controversy is only due to lack of knowledge of Muslim scholars, if we can call them scholars,” he is reported to have said in New Delhi.

The disputed 16th century mosque is back in the limelight some 17 years after it was pulled down by kar sevaks, who believe the place to be the birthplace of Lord Ram and blame Babar of having destroyed the original temple structure to replace it with the mosque.