Lucknow, Aug 23: Congress today asked Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and other senior BJP leaders, accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, to face trial and clear their names of the charges. "The senior BJP leaders should face the trail and come out clean in the Babri mosque demolition case and there should be no attempt to cover up the facts to save the skin of influential persons," Congress' legal cell chairman Hansraj Bharadwaj told reporters here.

Bharadwaj, who was the Union Law Minister when the mosque was demolished in 1992, rejected reports that the then Congress government had pressuriesd the CBI to include the names of Advani and others in the case.

"However, it appears that now CBI is acting under pressure as the charges of conspiracy had been dropped against these persons," he alleged.

"The CBI, after through investigations, had found evidences of conspiracy to pull down the mosque for which a secret meeting was held on December 5, a day prior to the demolition, which was attended among others by Advani and only then included the names of these persons in the chargesheet filed later," he added.

Bharadwaj said that all the evidences in this regard were present in the records submitted in the court.

He said that efforts were on to revive the legal cell of the party in Uttar Pradesh and involve advocates in a big way to ensure legal help to the needy and the poor.

Bureau Report