NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Kalayan Singh, who was chief minister of the BJP-led government of Uttar Pradesh when the Babri mosque was demolished in 1992, said on Wednesday that while accepting the moral responsibility for the incident he had quit the office at that time.

Mr Singh has recently resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has associated himself with the Samajwadi Party.

In a statement, he said: “I want to make it clear that I had taken moral responsibility for the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 and had resigned from the post of chief ministership.”

Reports suggested that Mr Singh issued the statement after Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav asked for his apology over the demolition of Babri Mosque.

Mr Singh was sentenced and jailed for a day for contempt of court for not keeping the promise of protecting the mosque.

Mr Singh said he believed that everyone had the right to be proud of his faith.

“While Muslims have a right to be proud of Islam, Hindus have equal right to be proud of their Hindutva. It’s unfortunate that to realise their political ambitions some people are creating fissures among these two faiths,” he said.

Everyone’s right to belief should be protected, he said. —APP