BJP Leader Subramanian Swamy. (File Photo) BJP Leader Subramanian Swamy. (File Photo)

The chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board met BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in Delhi to “work out a possible compromise formula” on Ayodhya on Sunday. The meeting with Swamy, said Waqf Board chairman Syed Wasim Rizvi, was part of the board’s initiative to meet all parties from the “mandir paksh (side)” to work out a solution that would enable both a mandir and a masjid to come up in Ayodhya.

Earlier this month, Rizvi travelled to Ayodhya to meet several mahants of a number of akharas there. The board had last month told the Supreme Court that it was in favour of the site of the demolished mosque being given for a temple and the mosque could come up some distance away in a Muslim-dominated area.

Rizvi, who had accused Pakistan of fanning the Babri fire, said the neighbouring country was manipulating the dispute through “places that issue fatwa” while the actual parties fighting for Babri were “mere puppets”.

“The Shia Waqf Board is of the view that both the mandir and masjid should come up and to this end the board unanimously decided in a meeting in July to talk to all parties on the temple side to work out a compromise formula.

That is why I met Swamy on Sunday. On Bakr Eid, I travelled to Ayodhya where I met mahant Ramdas of Nirmohi Akhara, mahant Dharamdas of Hanumangarhi and mahant Suresh Das of Digambar Akhara. All of them are parties in the case and these were the first of many more meetings to come with all of them,” Rizvi told The Indian Express. Swamy, an intervener in the matter, was not available for comment.

At its meeting in Bhopal on Sunday, the AIl India Muslim Personal Law Board expressed concern that with daily hearings in the Babri case to start in December, both sides had little time to translate the relevant documents that are voluminous. It said it would abide by whatever the court decides, “but the process has to be judicial without bringing politics into it.”

The Shia Waqf Board is the latest entrant in the case. It comprises newly inducted BJP member Bukkal Nawab, who had pledged Rs 15 crore for construction of a Ram temple, Rizvi, who had taken on the previous SP government in UP, and six other members.

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