New Delhi: In spite of the best efforts of the Congress to suppress the Ram Setu controversy, its allies in the UPA continue to mess around with the issue, causing deep consternation for the elder partner. On Saturday, Union Shipping Minister TR Baalu pricked the issue, questioning the very existence of Ram Setu in a tone that echoed his party leader M Karunanidhi.
”I do not see any Ram Setu, but only Adam's bridge,” Baalu said. He also tried to justify DMK leader M Karunanidhi’s comments on Lord Ram, saying his leader “has only expressed his anguish over the entire matter.”
Baalu ruled out the possibility of any realignment of the Sethusamudram canal project and said that the Centre would move the Supreme Court, seeking permission to carry out the project in the present route.
Asked about DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's remark that he was not averse to an alternate alignment, the minister said his leader had made that remark ‘out of anguish’ when he was repeatedly asked whether he was bent upon ‘destroying’ the Ram Sethu.
“I do not see any such thing as Ram Setu and I know only Adam's bridge (as Ram Setu is popularly called),” Baalu said.
He also took a dig at the BJP for opposing the demolition of the Setu, saying the alternate alignment being proposed by that party had already been rejected by the Union Environment Ministry during the NDA regime in 1999.
Though the entire project and the present alignment were approved by the BJP-led regime then, the party leaders were now trying to whip up religious passions to gain political mileage, he alleged.
The BJP, meanwhile, continued to target the Centre for the Ram Setu controversy. Attacking the Congress-led coalition, the BJP demanded an unqualified apology from it for denying the existence of Ram and said that a government displaying “such ignorance does not deserve to stay in office.”
A resolution on Ram Setu was approved at the party's ongoing national executive meeting in Bhopal, but senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi made it clear that the party “would not directly take up the campaign. It will support the Rameshwaram Ram Setu Raksha Manch to save the bridge.”
”We had never promised to construct the Ram temple ourselves, but had promised support to the endeavour undertaken by trusts like the Ram Janma Bhoomi Nyas,” Joshi said, adding: "We will also extend all possible support to the Manch for preservation the Setu".
Strongly condemning the affidavits submitted by the ASI on the Ram Setu issue in the Supreme Court, he said instead of totally withdrawing the ‘blasphemous’ affidavit and apologising for its submission, the UPA Government has even failed to identify as to who drafted it and at what level it was approved.
”The Centre is now trying to submit a supplementary affidavit and the Shipping Ministry wants to file an appeal against the stay granted by the Supreme Court,” he claimed, adding "utter confusion prevailing on this issue in Congress party has been reflected in the war of attrition going on between various leaders blaming each other for this fiasco.
"A government displaying such complete ignorance about its history, culture, tradition, literature and not accepting contribution of great characters like Ram and great saints like Valmiki, who had shaped the ethos of nation from times immemorial, does not deserve to stay in office," Joshi said.
(With agency inputs)
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