New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday trained guns on the Congress after party leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal asked the Supreme Court to defer hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi case till after the 2019 general elections.
“Kapil Sibal, a Congress MP, argued in Supreme Court yesterday in the Babri Masjid case. He can argue in court but is it right for him to say postpone hearing till 2019? Why is he linking elections with Ram Mandir. Now, the Congress is linking Ram Mandir with politics," PM Modi said while addressing an election rally in Gujarat.
Anand Sharma, deputy leader of Congress in the Rajya Sabha, hit back at the PM and said the party has nothing to do with Sibal’s stand in the SC.
“Finance Minister Arun Jaitley represented Dow Chemical who were guilty in the Bhopal gas tragedy. Is Modi asking Jaitley why he represented them? BJP has so many legal eagles. All of them have represented all kind of corrupt people. Is Modi asking them why they represented them? Congress has nothing to do with what he (Sibal) said in court. Congress stand is clear that SC must decide on Ayodhya," Sharma said.
On Tuesday, BJP national president Amit Shah had also attacked the Congress to make its stand clear on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue after Sibal’s arguments in court.
Shah said that on one hand, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is on "election tour of temples" in Gujarat, while on the other his party wants the hearing on the title dispute to be deferred.
Sibal, while arguing for the Sunni Waqf Board told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that since the court's decision in the case would have "very serious ramifications", hearing be deferred till July 2019 by which time the general election would be over.
"Please fix the matter in July 2019 and we assure that we will not seek any adjournments... justice should not only be done, it should seem to be done," Sibal told the court.
The special bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra also "prima facie" rejected the demand by a battery of lawyers including Sibal and Rajeev Dhavan that the appeals against the Allahabad High Court order be either referred to a five or seven-judge bench keeping in mind the sensitive nature of the case.
The Allahabad High Court had in 2010 ordered a three-way division of the disputed land which has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
The apex court decided to hear the matter on February 8 next year.
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