Hindutva icon Ashok Singhal passes away in Gurgaon

Ashok Singhal, the face of VHP in the Ram Temple movement, passed away at a Gurgaon hospital on Tuesday afternoon, succumbing to cardio-vascular seizure and septicaemia.

His body was brought from Medanta—The Medicity hospital, where he breathed his last at the age of 89, to the VHP headquarters in RK Puram area of South Delhi and later in the night shifted to Keshavkunj office of the RSS for people to pay respect, said VHP in an official communication.

Cremation
He will be cremated at Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat at 4:30 pm on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined a host of Union ministers and the Bhartiya Janata Party leaders to offer condolences on metallurgy engineer-turned-RSS functionary who rose to become one of the prominent drivers of the temple movement that lead to the demolition of Babri mosque. 

In Singhal’s death Modi saw “a deep personal loss” since he tweeted that he was “fortunate to receive Ashok ji’s blessings & guidance” and described the Hindutva icon as “an institution in himself, whose life was centred around serving the nation”.

Through another post, the prime minister stated that “Singhal ji was the force behind several noble deeds & social work, which benefitted the poor.”

He added: “He is an inspiration for generations.”

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said “He was one of the leading lights of “Shri Ramjanmabhoomi Andolanan”.

Born in Agra on October 2 in 1926, Singhal has a Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Banaras Hindu University Institute of Technology in 1950.

Firebrand Pravin Togadia who had already stepped into Singhal’s shoes is no friend of Prime minister Narendra Modi, is likely to mount pressure on the temple issue.

On September 30, Ashok Singhal had held a press conference to revive the temple issue but was not as aggressive in his demand reflected in the fact that VHP announced that day about its plan to hold two-day seminar from January 9 on sensitising people on the fact that scientific evidence has proved existence of temple at Ayodhya.

 The VHP was for expediting the case pending in the Supreme Court which, according to them, was the only hurdle in construction of the temple. 

His submissive stand was owing to established reality that over the years the temple politics had lost its relevance pushing Singhal into oblivion.

At the time of Vajpayee regime, Singhal would always criticise BJP leaders especially LK Advani for not building Ram Temple but reaping political benefit from temple politics.

He joined the RSS in 1942 and worked in different north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana before he was deputed to VHP in 1980.

Ashok Singhal became after becoming its working president and subsequently a prominent face of the Hindutva after he organised the Religious parliament in 1984 that laid the foundation for a religious campaign that ended with demolition of Babri mosque in 1992.