Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said on Friday that the Congress, not the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, will be held responsible for opening the lock of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1986 because all this was done by Arun Nehru, who was powerful in the party at that time. .
Aiyar alleged that Arun Nehru was a ‘plant’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Congress.
At the launch of his new book ‘The Rajiv I Nyo’, he also said that if Rajiv Gandhi had not died in 1991, there would have been such a solution to the Ayodhya dispute in which the mosque would have remained intact and the Ram temple would have been built.
Iyer, who worked with Rajiv Gandhi as an officer when he was the Prime Minister, has thrown light on major cases like the lock opening episode, foundation stone laying and Shah Bano in this book.
On the Ayodhya issue, Iyer said that with a majority of over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha, Rajiv Gandhi had no reason to appease Muslims or encourage Hindu sentiment.
Discussing the episode of opening of the lock in detail, he said, “The lock was opened and a large number of Hindu pilgrims who had gathered deliberately came inside and Rajiv did not know anything about it…Congress was involved in opening the locks. “…that Congressman knew that Rajiv Gandhi would never allow the locks to be opened by canceling the executive order and that is why he kept this thing away from Rajiv.”
According to him, within a year Rajiv Gandhi came to know about those conspiracies and later Arun Nehru joined BJP.
He said that Congress should not be held responsible for opening the lock, not Rajiv Gandhi.
Iyer said that as a Congressman, it is a matter of pride for him that the Congress leadership did not become a part of petty politics and rejected the invitation for the consecration ceremony.