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New Delhi: With Muslim Personal Law Board scheduled to discuss the Kanchi Shankaracharyas's formula for the solution of the vexed Ayodhya issue on July 6, several Muslim and Hindu leaders on July 2 questioned their locus-standi and termed the initiative as a poll "gimmick".

The Muslim leaders asked the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to confine themselves to personal law as "they dont have the mandate to deal on the Ayodhya issue".

Hindu leaders, led by Shankaracharya of Puri Adhokshjanand Tirth, said the Kanchi seer was just a "pawn" in the hands of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) whose exercise will be "futile" with the "Sangh Parivar which has a non-negotiable stand on the issue holding the veto power".

"The job entrusted to AIMPLB is to look after the Muslim Personal Law, but they are exceeding their brief", president of Anjuman Ajmir Sharif Toquir Raza Khan said at a seminar hosted by Minhaj-e-Rasul, a Muslim organisation.

Speaking at a separate press conference earlier, Khan, also the chief of All India Ittehad-e-Millat council, announced a move to create a separate "purely religious" board comprising ulemmas and other religious dignitaries within a week to solve the dispute.

Alleging that "there is no transparency in the dealings" of AIMPLB, chief of the Delhi Jamaat-ul-ulema Mufti Zaffahudin Ahmed said initially the board had promised that they would not budge from their stand that the "mosque will have to be constructed on the spot where it was demolished, but now it seems they have diluted their stand".

PTI