By Santosh Kumar Pathak

New Delhi, Dec 5 (IANS): Former Union Minister and Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik has claimed that the BJP was completely unaware about demolition of Babri Masjid and got information only after the disputed structure was razed.

Naik was the one, who while sitting in BJP headquarters in New Delhi, was informing veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the developments in Ayodhya.

In an exclusive interview with IANS, Naik spoke about what was going on in BJP's Delhi office on December 6, 1992 and shared vital information.

Here are few excerpts.

Q. What was happening in BJP headquarters on December 6, 1992 ?

A. I was the party's chief whip at that time... On that day, I, along with senior party leader Sundar Singh Bhandari, was keeping a tab

on every development in Ayodhya.

But at that time, modes of communication were less, mobiles were not there. We did not have so many television channels. We were gathering information through landline phones (telephones).

Q. What was your and Sundar Singh Bhandari's source of information and you were passing it on to whom?

A. See, that time, of the two veteran leaders, Lal Krishna Advani was in Ayodhya while Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in Delhi. The BJP was our source of information and inputs were being paased on to Vajpayee ji...

On the basis of all the information, Vajpayee ji held a live press confrence the next day.

Q : On December 6, 1992, what sort of information you were getting and what was the situation in Delhi?

A. We were getting information that party workers and kar sevaks are reaching Ayodhya... How many of them were stopped and where they were stopped, what Advaniji and other senior party leaders said in their address to public.

We were completely cluless that anything of that sort was about to happen. We got the information, only after Babri Masjid was demolished.