Kalyan Attempts Secular Credibility, Cries Foul
Attempting to diversify political liabilities, former UP chief minister and BP rebel Kalyan Singh on Saturday said he was victim of a conspiracy hatched by party leaders that kept him in the dark over plans on December 6, 1992.
“It was a conspiracy against me by the BJP leaders. It was a conspiracy to oust me. I was kept in the dark (about the demolition),” Singh, now an independent candidate contesting the parliamentary polls from Etah, was quoted as saying by IANS.
“Senior BJP leaders said no demolition will take place. I believed them,” he said-in an apparent attempt to woo minority Muslim voters back for the Samajwadi Party that has come in for severe attacks over Kalyan Singh’s growing proximity with party chief Mulayam Singh.
“Muslims don’t want BJP, I don’t want BJP. I have dug a ditch for the BJP and I request you to throw mud so that we can bury BJP,” he said while claiming: “I was not acceptable to the BJP. I was targeted because I come from the backward classes.”
Only time will tell if Kalyan Singh’s emotional appeal finds takers in the unforgiving heartland, where the demolition of the 16th century structure and the ensuing violence is said to be a prominent factor in the successive poll reversals suffered by the Congress and BJP.
