Wednesday, March 9 2005 15:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Communist Party if India-Marxist (CPM) today (Mar 9, 2005) demanded a thorough enquiry into a public speech made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee a day before the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 in which he allegedly said that no structure would remain in the disputed site.

"A serious and thorough enquiry should be made on Vajpayee's speech on December 5, 1992 at a public rally in Lucknow in which he allegedly says that no structure will remain in the disputed site," party leaders Nilotpal Basu and Basudeb Acharia told reporters in New Delhi.

Observing that the raison de etre of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government was to safeguard secularism and democracy, they said the Government should fulfil its role by "ordering a probe into the CDs on the speech that are available with us. He (Vajpayee) openly says that whatever stands on the disputed land will be flattened", Basu said, adding Vajpayee was "touted as the secular face" of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Referring to the "kidnapping" of five newly elected MLAs of Jharkhand, the CPM leaders asked if they would vote out of their own conscience, "why have they been taken to Jaipur".

"Is forcible confinement of elected legislators an epitome of democracy," Basu asked.

While the CPM has also questioned the role of the Governor in calling Jharkhand Mukthi Morcha (JMM) chief Shibu Soren to prove majority, "we also have people being whisked away at gunpoint", he said.

Basu and Acharia also expressed satisfaction that Parliament was functioning normally for almost one-and-a-half weeks, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA allowing the House to run.