No takers for negotiated settlement on Ayodhya issue

The Supreme Court may be hoping for a negotiated settlement on the vexed Ram temple issue but there are no takers for the same in Ayodhya.

Almost all the parties to the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suits as well as the seer community in Ayodhya feel that there is no room for a negotiated settlement, now.

"The intention of the SC may be right but the issue has now reached a point, where there is no scope for negotiations," a senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader in Ayodhya said on Tuesday.

The VHP leader said that the Muslim parties were not interested in a negotiated settlement.

One of the main plaintiffs in the title suits, Iqbal Ansari also said that the dispute could only be resolved through the court.

"There is no use wasting any more time in trying to resolve the issue through negotiations... It will be better if the court delivers its verdict on the issue soon," Ansari said.

In the past several attempts were made to find a negotiated settlement of the issue.

Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar and UP Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi had tried to mediate and bring the concerned parties on a single platform but they couldn't succeed.

Prominent Hindu seers had dismissed Sri Sri's mediation efforts as 'nautanki' (a hilarious play without any message) and asked him to keep away from the issue.

"Ravishankar runs an NGO... He is neither a saint nor a spiritual personality... He has no role to play in the dispute... What he is doing is nothing but a nautanki," prominent Hindu seer and All India Akhara Parishad president Mahant Narendra Giri had said.

Former BJP MP and VHP leader Ram Vilas Vedanti had also opposed the mediation efforts.

Senior Muslim cleric and All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangimahali also voiced scepticism over the mediation efforts saying that the matter was in the Supreme Court and Muslims would abide by the court's verdict.