Police use water cannons to disperse VHP activists protesting against the crackdown on yatra at Delhi's Jantar Mantar
The Uttar Pradesh government's massive crackdown to prevent a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) yatra in Ayodhya on Sunday, caused fireworks in Delhi on Monday.
About 2,000 VHP activists protested at Jantar Mantar and the police used water cannons when some of them tried to break barricades to go towards Parliament, where the BJP clashed with the Samajwadi Party which rules UP. The BJP and the VHP are affiliated.
In the Lok Sabha, BJP member Yogi Adityanath accused the UP government of "insulting Hindus" by not allowing the VHP.
Samjawadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose son is the chief minister of UP, justified the arrest of top VHP leaders. He accused the right-wing outfit of going against the Constitution and Supreme Court orders by attempting to revive the demand for a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, where the Babri Masjid was brought down in 1992.
"Stop playing vote-bank politics," Mr Yadav said, to much uproar from the BJP benches, which only got louder when Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) asked, "Is the VHP the contractor for Hindus?" The Lok Sabha had to be adjourned in the din that ensued.
On Sunday, the Akhilesh Yadav government in UP deployed 8,000 cops and arrested 2,096 people to prevent the yatra, which it had banned. It arrested top VHP leaders like Praveen Togadia and Ram Vilas Vedanti, and detained VHP chief Ashok Singhal at the Lucknow airport. It has said that the massive security arrangements will continue.
In all the melee in Ayodhya, as groups of activists darted out of temples and ashrams to challenge the police, the VHP said it had launched its yatra.
The administration has said the tight security will continue till September 13, when the 21-day yatra was to have ended, after a 300-km trek circling Ayodhya.
As the SP and the BJP accuse each other of trying to politicise the issue, other parties like the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party have accused them both of using the Ayodhya yatra to polarise votes in the state.
While the SP counts the sizeable Muslim population in UP as a crucial vote bank, the BJP's ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh reportedly sees an opportunity to consolidate the Hindu vote bank for general elections 2014 by reviving the Ram temple agenda.