Ayodhya Ram temple's roof leaking after heavy showers on Saturday night; priest blames lack of drainage

Lucknow: Less than six months after it was inaugurated, the much-touted Ram temple of Ayodhya is marred by leakage after the 'temple town' was lashed by heavy rains on Saturday, posing serious difficulties for the priests in conducting the rituals.

Ram temple chief priest Acharya Satyendra Das told reporters in Ayodhya on Sunday that the priests found the place filled with water when they went into the sanctum sanctorum for conducting the rituals. ''The roof was leaking... if this is the situation after the first heavy showers, one can imagine the situation when the monsoon hits the state,'' said Das.

Expressing surprise at the leakage of water from the roof of the temple, which was designed and constructed under the supervision of top engineers in the country and leading firms, Das said that there was no arrangement for drainage from the sanctum-sanctorum of the temple.

''A solution to this problem must be found immediately as it (leakage) may also affect darshan and puja at the temple... Puja and darshan will have to be stopped if there were more rains and the roof continues to leak,'' he added.

Chairman of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which was overseeing the construction of the Ram temple, Nripendra Mishra said that the water leakage from the roof is natural as the construction work was still going on and some areas were open.

''The mandaps which are open may have leakage... I have seen rain water falling from the first floor as the Guru Mandap is not covered... this problem will be solved once the dome is installed,'' Mishra said.

‘’There is no fault in the design or in the construction,’’ he added.

The opposition leaders, however, were quick to pounce on the BJP and alleged that there was large scale corruption in the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. ‘’Even the places of worship are sources of loot for the BJP,’’ UP Congress president Ajay Rai said in a statement here on Monday.

‘’It also exposes the claims of development of Ayodhya by the government,’’ Rai added.