Avaidyanath stamp: Govt honours Mahant who said Advani should die

"On 1 October, the Centre will issue a stamp commemorating Mahant Avaidyanath, one of the leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. There was a demand for a stamp on the Mahant by Yogi Adityanath, the firebrand BJP leader who represents Gorakhpur in Lok Sabha. Adityanath succeeded Avaidyanath as the head of the Gorakhnath Math... The Liberhan Commission named Avaidyanath as one of those individuals responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992. As a leading light of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Mahant was one of the main protagonists of the agitation, much before LK Advani plunged into the movement and launched his Rath Yatra... It seems for Avaidyanath, the temple wasn't an end in itself. Rather it was a means to a larger goal: the promotion of Hindutva and the establishment of a Hindu nation. In his book Islamism and Democracy in India, Irfan Ahmad writes that Avaidyanath admitted in an interview to RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya in 1989 that the real issue wasn't Ram Janmabhoomi but the future of the Hindu Rashtra... There are unverified reports that mahant presided over the conversion of 471 Muslim families into his Nath sect in 2008. He allegedly instigated violence during the 2007 Gorakhpur riots..."