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Our Correspondent in New Delhi
The Congress on Thursday denied a report that it favoured building a Ram temple at Ayodhya "peacefully".
Chief spokesman S Jaipal Reddy told rediff.com that the report was "wrong and mischievous" and the Congress had no meeting point with "the communal forces led by the Bharatiya Janata Party".
He argued that the Congress had consistently regarded the BJP as its main political foe and to suggest that his party was playing the 'Hindu card' by mobilising some saints for the peaceful construction of a temple to Ram was a "travesty of the truth".
"We have already stated that we will go by the court verdict on Ayodhya," he pointed out.
The report said Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh had seized the initiative to mobilise the saints and alerted them for a meeting with party chief Sonia Gandhi at Dighouri in Seoni district of the state on Friday.
Reddy pointed out that Sonia Gandhi had attended the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad last year, but declined to meet Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders who wanted to explain their views on the construction of the temple.
He said the party's policy against communal forces remained unchanged.
"It is unfortunate that fanciful ideas are finding their way into the media," senior Congress general secretary Ambika Soni said. "It is absurd to suggest that we will support anything that upsets the status quo."
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