Home minister P Chidambaram struggles to get into his car after tabling the Liberhan report in Parliament. (AP)

New Delhi, Nov. 24: Forced to cave in for the second time within a week, the Congress seemed to have achieved its immediate objective.

It split the Opposition that came together at the start of this Parliament session and looked set to consolidate that unity before the government beat a retreat on sugarcane.

But at the end of the day, neither the BJP, nor the Samajwadi Party — who had insisted they wouldn’t let the House function unless the government tabled the Liberhan report and the accompanying action taken report (ATR) on Tuesday — was sure how the issue would eventually play itself out.

The sanitised ATR, which has insulated the government against a possible campaign from the BJP and the RSS-VHP by proferring token assurances of bringing in a communal violence bill and speeding up demolition cases, also raised the hackles of minority leaders.

Unwilling to be quoted yet, one of them recalled that the Congress had refused to take a stand on the Batla House “encounter” last year despite pressure from prominent Muslim members.

This minority leader also said the “secular” Maharashtra government did nothing to implement the Srikrishna Commission’s suggestions on the 1993 communal violence in Mumbai.

“The party’s working on the ‘jaye to jaye kahan’ (where will they go?) theory as far as Muslims are concerned. They know they get their votes anyway, that parties like the Samajwadi and the RJD have become weaker. But why annoy Hindus who are a larger constituency?” asked a Muslim MP.

Lok Sabha MP and spokesperson Manish Tewari said the “gain” from dividing the Opposition would be short-lived. “Opposition politics is about opportunism. If there is an opportune moment again, the BJP, the Left and the others will come together again,” he said.

An office-bearer and MP from Andhra Pradesh quoted Telugu Desam leader N. Chandrababu Naidu to say that the “spirit of anti-Congressism” had already permeated the political establishment and the Congress would be “foolhardy” to misread the signs.

Naidu today held the Congress and the BJP equally responsible for the Babri demolition, a statement that was interpreted by the MP to mean the BJP’s “untouchability era” was “slowly fading”.

The Samajwadi, stung by the loss of its Muslim votes, used every chance to win them back. If it dumped Kalyan Singh and paraded Mumbai MLA Abu Azmi as its latest mascot, Amar Singh today lunged at BJP MP S.S. Ahluwalia when the party shouted “Jai Shri Ram” after P. Chidambaram tabled the Liberhan report and the ATR.

The slogan, Singh told journalists, “had the potential to divide the House along communal lines”.

Samajwadi sources said they would embark on a campaign to remind Muslims how their leader Mulayam Singh Yadav had “saved” the mosque in 1990.

The message didn’t cut ice with the community.

“We don’t want to be bonded to the past. We have to move ahead and see which party is best suited to our interests right now. The Samajwadi is not one of them,” said Zafareyab Jilani, a convener of the Babri Masjid Action Committee and a former Mulayam backer.