Union defence minister Rajnath Singh
Credit: X/@rajnathsingh
Lucknow: Union defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said that India was so much associated with Lord Rama’s ideals that it followed them even during ‘Operation Sindoor’, when India attacked terror camps inside Pakistan in precision strikes in May in response to the Pahalgham killings by Pak sponsored terrorists.
‘’Lord Rama’s maryada (dignity) is our identity…..Lord Rama never crossed the limits of maryada even while fighting Ravana,’’ Singh said while addressing a gathering in Ayodhya after attending the rituals on the occasion of second anniversary of Ramlala idol consecration in Ayodhya.
‘’We too did the same during Operation Sindoor…We did not act indiscriminately….it was a controlled action….we targeted only the terror hubs…Operation Sindoor proved that India was the real heir to Lord Rama’s legacy,’’ he said.
The minister also termed the Ram Temple movement as the ‘biggest’ movement in the world.
‘’The construction of the Ram Temple is one of the grand narratives in the world…there was no other movement in the world bigger than the Ram Temple movement,’’ Singh remarked.
He said that efforts were on to construct a grand ‘Janaki’ (Lord Rama’s consort) at Sitamarhi.
In his address Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath took potshots at the rivals saying that some people had turned Ayodhya into a battlefield as part of their ‘vote bank politics’.
He said that rival governments never bothered to develop the town and there was no infrastructure there. ‘’Devotees avoided coming to Ayodhya then…but now it has all the facilities and over 45 crore devotees had visited the town in the past five years,’’ Adityanath said.
Earlier a series of religious rituals in the presence of hundreds of seers and political leaders were performed at the newly constructed Ram Temple in Ayodhya to mark the second anniversary of Ramlala idol consecration on Wednesday.
Singh and Adityanath attended the special puja at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya which witnessed a sea of devotees from different parts of the country on the day.
Religious rituals had started in the Temple town a few days back to celebrate the occasion with the seers performing pujas at different temples inside the Ram Temple complex.
The rituals began with Ganpati Puja and Mandal Pujan. Over one thousand seers and Ram Bhakts have been invited on this occasion.
Elaborate security arrangements have been made in Ayodhya keeping in view the huge rush of the devotees. Large queues of devotees were seen outside the Ram Temple and other temples in the town.
Security personnel in strength were deployed at the temples and other important places and traffic restrictions were put in place to manage the crowd of devotees. VIP passes were cancelled in view of the rush of devotees.