A girl at a rally in Mumbai to demand the reconstruction of the Babri Masjid. (Reuters)

New Delhi, Dec. 6: The Centre is unlikely to grant another extension to the M.S. Liberhan Commission, which has been inquiring into the Babri Masjid demolition of 1992.

The commission, headed by a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, is under pressure to submit its report by December 31, when its term ends.

The government is keen on expediting the report for various reasons.

One, keeping the approaching Uttar Pradesh elections in view, the BJP struck a strident note in Parliament on the anniversary of the demolition today, triggering an uproar and adjournments.

V.K. Malhotra, the BJP’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, challenged “all pseudo-seculars” to a referendum on “Bhagvan Ram and Babur. Let the UP elections be a referendum”.

With the Centre and the Congress under pressure for “doing little” for minorities, the government hopes to use the Sachar and the Liberhan reports to counter the BJP and answer the critics from the secular school.

The Congress feels that if the Liberhan panel indicted BJP leaders such as L.K. Advani, it would “boost” its “pro-minority” credentials.

When the panel was constituted by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao 10 days after the mosque was brought down, it was given a three-month deadline.

Fourteen years and six extensions later, the panel has given no indication that it is through with its work. The commission closed the demolition-related evidence in June 2005. The government hopes to table the report in the budget session and also present an action-taken report.

While the probe into the 1993 Bombay blasts has “more or less reached a conclusion” and the trial court has pronounced the verdict, “how is it that in the 1992 Babri case, the process is nowhere near completion?” parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi wondered today.