'A Gandhi would not have allowed Babri destruction'

Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh: In remarks aimed at wooing Muslims, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi declared on Monday that the Babri mosque would not have been razed if the Gandhis had been at the helm of affairs in the country.

Determined to make up for that one single act that robbed the Congress of its long-standing Muslim support base, the young Gandhi distanced his party from the December 1992 destruction of the 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya.

"Babri Masjid [destruction] would not have happened had any Gandhi family member been there," Rahul Gandhi told reporters while partaking of his home-made lunch at a roadside 'dhaba' between Khatauli and Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh.

Rajiv's words

Touring the state's sprawling sugar belt for the first time to boost the Congress election campaign for the seven-phase assembly election, the son of Congress president Sonia Gandhi said: "My father [former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi' told my mother: 'Were the Babri Masjid to be razed, I will stand there and get killed rather than allow the masjid to fall'."

Elected to parliament for the first time in 2004, Rahul Gandhi refused to buy the argument that the Congress decline in Uttar Pradesh, a state the party once dominated, was a result of the rise of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"If India has to progress, Uttar Pradesh has to. It cannot go on like this. It is very harmful for Uttar Pradesh. Any respectable politician cannot sit back and watch."

Rahul set out for his tour three hours late on Monday because of the partial solar eclipse, apprehending that religious-minded people would not venture out on the streets.

Once he was out on the road, however, he was greeted with a good turnout just about everywhere. The welcome was particularly enthusiastic in Muslim-dominated areas.

Since Rahul's entry into western Uttar Pradesh, there appeared to be a perceptible change in the mood of the people towards the Congress. The presence of Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Mahendra Singh Tikait's son Rakesh Tikait at a Congress rally in Muzaffarnagar may be taken for a sign of the swing.

The Congress, now an also-ran in the state, is making determined efforts to make its presence felt.