Congress would have prevented Babri demolition: Rahul

Muzaffarnagar, UP, Mar 19 (UNI) Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi today claimed that the Ayodhya demolition in December 1992 would not have occurred if the Congress was in power in Uttar Pradesh, and said the party was discussing alliances with RLD and Jan Morcha for the upcoming state assembly elections.

''My father (Late Rajiv Gandhi) had so often told my mother, (Congress President Sonia Gandhi) that he would stand in front of the Babri Masjid to prevent any attempt to demolsh the structure,'' Mr Gandhi said on the second day of his three-day tour of Western UP to campaign for the Assembly elections.

He termed as a ''sell-out'' the 1996 alliance of the Congress with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, and said there would be no more similar ''blanket alliances'' in the future. ''There would be future alliances with other regional parties but not as the one we had in 1996.'' Mr Gandhi said the Congress downfall in UP in 1996 was due to an organisational problem and the BJP, BSP and other regional parties were not responsible for its poor position in the state.

He exhorted the people, especially youths, to rise above caste and religion considerations to bring Uttar Pradesh out of the ''murky situation'' it had experienced in the last 15 years.

He urged the youth to aid him in ''bringing the state back on the path of development'' and ''free UP'' from the clutches of ''goonda raj and ''maladministration.'' Parties in the last decade-and-a-half have divided UP on the basis of caste and religion and exploited people without working for development in the state, Mr Gandhi said.

He, however, told those assembled that his visit was ''not merely due to the coming elections'' and he would ''work as long as it takes with them to usher in development again.'' Recalling his trips to various parts of India, he said he had noted that most of the development was due to the efforts of the people of UP.

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