This week 35 years ago, the BJP national executive gathered in Palampur, a hill town in Himachal Pradesh known for the Kangra first flush that grew out of a bush brought from Almora in 1849. But more than tea was brewing there, one that would soon have the nation on boil.
In its Palampur resolution adopted at the June 9-11 meeting in 1989, the BJP, which had turned nine just two months ago and had only two MPs in Lok Sabha, declared that Ayodhya was an article of faith, key to its electoral politics.
“The sentiments of the people must be respected, and Ram Janmasthan handed over to the Hindus — if possible through a negotiated settlement, or else by legislation. Litigation certainly is no answer,” it said, maintaining that a court of law cannot adjudicate whether Babur did actually invade Ayodhya, destroy a temple and build a mosque in its place.
A vote for CPI
This started a chain of events beyond the control of the Rajiv Gandhi government, already battling allegations of corruption, the rebellion of V P Singh and fearful of a Hindu backlash over the decision to overturn the Shah Bano ruling.
On the ground in Ayodhya, the Parivar had begun mobilising and the VHP took the lead in organising a shilanyas ceremony for the Ram temple. In the belief that it could win back Hindu support, the Rajiv Gandhi government allowed the shilanyas on November 9, barely two weeks before elections to the 9th Lok Sabha.
For the first time, the BJP emerged as a force, its tally in the Lok Sabha jumping from two to 85. Of these, eight came from undivided Uttar Pradesh, which had 85 parliamentary constituencies. This was a turning point, one that would see the BJP and Left parties offering external support to the National Front government of V P Singh.
But the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat — to which Ayodhya still belongs — chose to go the other way. It elected Mitrasen Yadav, a candidate of the CPI, who edged out Nirmal Khatri of the Congress. The BJP was not in the fray. Mitrasen, who had been elected thrice from the Assembly seat of Milkipur (a segment of the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency), had become MP for the first time.
In his mid-50s, he was full of stories for reporters on the prowl, trying to rediscover Ayodhya for a national audience suddenly interested in the goings-on.
He would tell you about Faizabad, the capital of the Nawabs before the shift to Lucknow, and how Awadh was once the granary of the North, feeding lands all around, where culture and art flourished, and where peace meant co-existence.
Or, about the uprising of the kisans in 1921 in Faizabad and Rae Bareli, preparing the grounds for the socialists. Or, about Ram Manohar Lohia’s birth in Akbarpur, some 60 km from Faizabad.
But Mitrasen could see the writing on the wall. When we met next, he spoke of a stirring, one that would be difficult to contain. The demand for a temple for Ram at the site people called the janmabhoomi would only increase. He was not wrong.
In the election to the 10th Lok Sabha in 1991, which followed the fall of the Chandra Shekhar government and was interrupted by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Mitrasen was defeated by Vinay Katiyar, chief of the Bajrang Dal who contested on a BJP ticket. Camping in Ayodhya, Katiyar played an active role in the temple movement. In that election, UP alone accounted for 51 of the BJP’s 120 MPs.
Katiyar and Mitrasen were to fight three other elections to Lok Sabha: 11th, 12th, 13th. Katiyar won in 1996 and 1999, while Mitrasen defeated him in 1998 (on a SP ticket). In 2004, as a BSP candidate, Mitrasen defeated BJP’s Lallu Singh. Mitrasen passed away in 2015.
Mulayam, Mayawati come together
If 1989 was a watershed for the BJP and the temple movement, the 1993 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh was another. The polls were held after a spell of President’s rule that had followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. The BJP emerged as the largest party in the UP House but SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP’s Mayawati joined hands to keep it out.
In that state election, Ayodhya chose Lallu Singh of the BJP as its MLA — he would go on to become the Faizabad MP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But the other Assembly segments of the parliamentary constituency elected SP candidates and CPI’s Mitrasen in Milkipur — the samajwadi base was intact.
One of the SP MLAs was Awadhesh Prasad, who was repeatedly elected from Sohawal, a reserved constituency. He rarely figured in reporter dispatches datelined Ayodhya. Until last week, when he took Faizabad. Less than six months after the consecration of the Ram temple, Ayodhya and UP have sent the BJP a message: Of a new stirring there.
