When L K Advani was arrested in Bihar during Ram Rath Yatra

BJP patriarch L K Advani was not able to attend the 'bhoomi pujan' ceremony in Ayodhya on Wednesday, but it was he who actually laid the foundation of Ram Temple movement three decades back.

On September 25, 1990, L K Advani, the then tallest BJP leader, along with his confidant Pramod Mahajan, started his Rath Yatra after offering puja at Somnath Temple in Gujarat. The plan was chalked out such that after covering till Bihar, the yatra would eventually culminate at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh where Advani would lay the foundation for the construction of a majestic Ram Temple.

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The idea was strongly opposed by the then Prime Minister V P Singh, whose National Front Government was supported by the BJP as well as the Left.

Amid political turbulence, Advani's rath entered Bihar on October 19, 1990. Lalu Prasad was then the Bihar chief minister, who had sworn in barely seven months ago. Lalu was in constant touch with the Prime Minister and kept V P Singh abreast with the volatile situation.

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As Advani's chariot (a swanky air-conditioned bus) entered Dhanbad (now in Jharkhand, but then in undivided Bihar), Lalu reportedly asked its Deputy Commissioner (DC) Afzal Amanullah to detain the BJP leader. Amanullah was the son-in-law of Syed Shahabuddin (the IFS officer-turned-Parliamentarian), who was also the then convenor of the Babri Masjid Action Committee. The Dhanbad DC, apprehending communal strife, avoided detaining Advani.

On October 23, Advani's rath entered Patna where the BJP veteran addressed a huge gathering amid chanting of slogans: 'Kasam Ram ki khatein hain, Mandir wahin banayenge.' The frenzy was seen to be believed.

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The same day, Advani moved ahead and stopped at Samastipur to spend his night at Samastipur Circuit House.

After constant confabulations with the prime minister, Lalu eventually decided that time had come to detain Advani, or else, the communal harmony in the country may be disturbed. He asked the District Magistrate R K Singh, one of the most competent IAS officers (who later became Union Home Secretary during P Chidambaram's tenure before joining the BJP and eventually becoming Union Minister in Narendra Modi Cabinet), to arrest Advani.

In the wee hours of October 24, 1990, Singh knocked Advani's doors and showed him his arrest warrant.

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"Along with Pramod Mahajan, Advani was flown to the picturesque location of Masanjore IB (Inspection Bungalow), 35 km from Dumka (then in undivided Bihar, now in Jharkhand), in a helicopter," recounted P C Choudhary, who was then the Executive Engineer of Dumka and the Irrigation Department IB was under his jurisdiction.

"There were four rooms in the Inspection Bungalow. Two rooms were allocated to Advani and Mahajan, while Singh and the then Dumka SP stayed in the other two rooms to ensure fool-proof security to the top BJP leaders," Choudhary told Deccan Herald.

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Soon after Advani's arrest, Atal Bihari Vajpayee marched to Rashtrapati Bhavan and withdrew support to the VP Singh government, thereby, leading to collapse of the 11-month-old National Front government. The rest, as they say, is history.