Singh: Disturbed?

New Delhi, Nov. 20: Manmohan Singh phoned L.K. Advani yesterday after the BJP leader charged police with “barbaric treatment” of Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur, and promised to “share” with him the facts of the investigation, sources said.

National security adviser M.K. Narayanan is likely to brief Advani and other BJP leaders on the Malegaon probe tomorrow, they added.

Advani, nursing a “secular” image of late, had been reticent on Malegoan even while party chief Rajnath Singh warned that the use of terms like “Hindu terrorism” could set off a civil war.

So when the leader of the Opposition — the BJP’s biggest leader nationally — launched his tirade on Tuesday, it “disturbed” the Prime Minister, the sources said. Manmohan Singh then decided to contact Advani, who has in the past repeatedly mocked him as a weak Prime Minister.

On Tuesday, Advani had accused the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS), which is probing the September 29 blast, of “acting in a politically motivated and unprofessional manner”. The sources said Singh told Advani there existed no such thing as Hindu terrorism or Islamic terrorism, and that the probe should not be politicised lest that hit police morale.

According to BJP insiders, Advani told Singh he had decided to speak out because Pragya’s affidavit had “deeply disturbed” him. In her affidavit before a Nashik court, the sadhvi has alleged she was detained illegally and tortured by the ATS before being officially arrested.

Advani asked Singh to go through the affidavit and replace the investigators who had “harassed” Pragya.

Reacting to Advani’s defence of Pragya, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said: “There is no reason for the head of a political party to stand up and support a terror accused. The court has verified each allegation (of Pragya’s), physical and medical, and found them untrue.”

Advani’s earlier silence had prompted the Congress to claim the BJP was divided on Malegaon, and that the “fissures” would prevent a full-throated campaign. Advani, however, changed his position after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s November 16 Panipat conclave, where it pulled off a coup by getting Baba Ramdev, the hugely popular yoga guru, to rally behind his “cheli” (disciple), Pragya.

Advani had co-opted Ramdev into the BJP’s pantheon of clerics, hoping the Baba’s larger acceptability would put a gloss on the BJP leader’s “hard-line” image.

Ramdev’s stand has so disturbed his “secular” followers that one of them, Lalu Prasad, has publicly asked the Baba not to “favour forces that are out to divide the country on religious lines”.

The Congress believes it need not be defensive about the Malegaon arrests, since Hindus aren’t getting polarised in the poll-bound states.