Saffron leaders pitch for Ram Temple

Raking up the contentious Ram Temple issue barely days ahead of the first phase of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, saffron leaders have expressed serious concern over delay in its construction and vowed to launch a decisive battle for it after the elections.

Saints belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) called for enactment of a legislation by Parliament paving the way for construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya.

A resolution to this effect was also adopted at the meeting of the VHP Margdarshak Mandal (advisory body) at Allahabad on Tuesday.

The meeting, which was attended by Ram Janambhoomi Trust president Mahant Nritya Gopal Das and representatives of the All India Akhara Parishad, also adopted resolutions demanding a ban on cow slaughter and Uniform Civil Code in the country.

The saffron leaders declared that a movement would be launched for Ram Temple after the UP Assembly polls with the help of the saints and other religious leaders.

The clamour for Ram Temple comes a day after Uttar Pradesh BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya’s reported remarks that a grand Ram Temple would be built at Ayodhya after the BJP came to power in the state. Maurya clarified later that Ram Temple was an issue of faith for the BJP and not an electoral issue. 

The NDA government had recently decided to set up a Ramayana Museum in a bid to placate the saffron leaders, who had attacked the BJP for abandoning the issue.

 Firebrand BJP leader and founder of the Bajarang Dal (BD) Vinay Katiyar had left his party’s top leadership red faced, when he virtually termed the proposed Ramayana Museum as nothing but a lollipop and said that the nation wanted nothing less than a grand Ram Temple.

“All these (museum, theme park) are alright but we want Ram Temple...without Ram Temple everything else is useless,” Katiyar, who was among the prominent BJP leaders who had spearheaded the Ram Temple movement, had said a few days ago.

 BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy has on several occasions advocated for a Ram Temple and said that former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the polls as he had abandoned the temple issue.

 BJP MPs Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and some others are already clamouring for the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
DH News Service