BHUBANESWAR: The Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Monday warned that any government, either at the centre or state. “Will have to go” if It stood in the way of the “reconstruction” of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya scheduled to begin on October 30,

Some 500,000 volunteers will launch a peaceful protest if New Delhi and the Uttar Pradesh government did not allow the commencement of the reconstruction of the temple, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, joint general secretary of the VHP told a news conference here.

He said the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Lal Krishna Advani had recently announced at Jodhpur that his party would “withdraw support” from the National Front government at the centre if it resisted the move to reconstruct the Sri Ram temple at Ayodhya”.

It will be a direct fight with the government, he declared and said the VHP was “not bound” to obey the verdict of the Allahabad high court on the Ram JanambhoomiBabri Masjid dispute as no court has any jurisdiction to decide the birth place of lord Ram.

Hindu fundamentalists claim the site of the Babri mosque is located on the birth place of the Hindu god, Ram, though there is no historical evidence to prove this, the case has gone to the Allahabad court for a decision.

NEW DELHI: While announcing its action plan for “kar seva” of Ram Temple at Ayodhya from October 30, the Vishwa Hindu Parished (VHP) was at pains to maintain that its movement was nonviolent and nonvolatile of the law.

Addressing a news conference Mr SC Dikshit, a former Director General of Police UP and Vice President of the Parishad regretted that the VHP’s detractors had sought to create an impression that it had no respect for the courts and the law. This was far from true. The VHP had never flouted any law or any court order in the past. In fact the courts had all along given decisions in favour of Hindus by virtue of which they had unfettered right to worship idols in the Janmabhoomi temple. It was again on court orders by which locks were removed from the temple and the shilanayas was performed last year after the Supreme Court had held that it was the fundamental right of the Hindus to do so. Mr Dikshit said it was the Babri Masjid action committee which was formed to protest against the court’s decision to remove the locks.

Mr Ashok Singhal Secretary General of the VHP, who also addressed the Press conference said the “renovation” of the temple would commence on October 30.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 14, 1990