Calling former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee one of the party?s ?pseudo-moderates??along with L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi?the Liberhan Commission makes several references to Vajpayee bracketing him with his hardline colleagues.
Vajpayee figures as Number 7 in the list of 68 held responsible for pushing the country to the ?brink of communal discord.? There are at least 22 references to Vajpayee in the over 1029-page report but the most critical ones are in Chapter 14, titled ?Conclusions?.
?The commission is unable to hold even these pseudo-moderates innocent of any wrongdoing. It cannot be assumed even for a moment that L K Advani, AB Vajpayee or MM Joshi did not know the designs of the Sangh Parivar,? Justice ML Liberhan writes on page 942.
The report goes on to say that former party ideologue K Govindacharya?s description of Vajpayee as BJP?s mukhauta (mask) could in fact be applied to all the three leaders together.
?On one hand, the leaders like AB Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi and LK Advani, who are the undeniable public face and leaders of the BJP and thus, of the Parivar, constantly protested their innocence and denounced the events of December 1992. On the other hand, it stands established beyond doubt that the events of the day were neither spontaneous nor unplanned nor an unforeseen overflowing of the people?s emotions.
?These people, who may be called pseudo-moderates could not have defied the mandate of the Sangh Parivar, and more specifically the diktats of the RSS, without having bowed out of public life as leaders of the BJP. They were not in control of the RSS and had absolutely no influence over the direction of they had been told to follow,? the report says.
The report says that even though these leaders were not completely in charge of the situation, they could not ?however be given the benefit of the doubt and exonerated of culpability.?
The report also says:
* On page 447: ?The orchestration and management of the political ethos and circumstances was managed by the RSS, LK Advani, AB Vajpayee, other members of the RSS and the BJP and notably Kalyan Singh, K Sudershan, HV Sheshadri and Govindacharya.?
* On page 580: ?BJP leaders, including Advani and Vajpayee, had been supporting the construction movement of the temple overtly since 1984 and covertly ever since its inception.?
* On page 582: In the context of BJP proclaiming that it had no control of the karsevaks, the report says that that it could not be denied that almost all leaders of BJP, VHP and other organisations in the Sangh Parivar, used to be or are current members of the RSS. ?So much so that even A B Vajpayee, even while he was the PM, proclaimed that he is first a swayamsevak and thereafter the PM.?
* On page 660: Vajpayee told the VHP rally of April 4, 1991 that ?the construction of the temple at Ram Janmabhoomi was necessary because national honour had to be restored.?