JOIN USThe BJP’s new poster boy and election campaign committee chairman Narendra Modi could launch his Uttar Pradesh campaign from Ayodhya, birthplace of Lord Rama and nerve centre of the Ram Temple agitation.
According to BJP sources here, Modi could visit Ayodhya next week to participate in a function to be organised by Ram Janmabhoomi Trust chairman, mahant Nritya Gopal Das.
The five-day function, to be attended by several top BJP leaders and saints, would begin on June 18 at Ayodhya. A number of senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders would also attend the function, sources said.
Office bearers at the mahant’s ashram said an invite has been sent to Modi to attend the function. “There are indications that Modi will attend,” said an office bearer.
The BJP sources said there could have been no better platform than Ayodhya to launch Modi in the state. “Modi’s participation will certainly provide a new lease of life to the Ram temple issue,” saffron leaders said. “As a large number of well known and respected saints will be attending the function, Narendra Modi will also have a chance to meet them and seek their blessings for his new innings in national politics.”
“The visit to Ayodhya will more than compensate for his absence at the Mahakumbh,” they asserted.
The BJP had lost the Ayodhya Assembly seat in last year’s election. The loss was considered to be a serious setback to the temple agitation. Although it is a religious function being organised to celebrate 50 years of Nritya Gopal Das as the mahant of the ashram, there is every likelihood of it being turned into a platform to rekindle the Ram Temple agitation.
Modi’s protege and Uttar Pradesh in-charge of the BJP, Amit Shah, has already indicated that the party would take up issues like Ram temple, cow slaughter and appeasement of the Muslim community to “expose” the present dispensation in the state.