RSS wants top BJP leaders in Ram Temple trust

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was in favour of forming the proposed Trust for the construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya on the model of Somnath Temple Trust in Gujarat.

The Sangh also wants some top BJP leaders to be part of the Ram Temple Trust as members.

Senior RSS functionaries Suresh Bhaiyaji Joshi and Krishna Gopal held closed-door meetings with the BJP leaders in Varanasi on Tuesday and Wednesday, where they discussed the structure of the proposed Trust for Ram Temple.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and other senior saffron party leaders also took part in the deliberations, according to the sources in the BJP.

Sources said that the RSS wanted prime minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and Adityanath in the proposed Trust as members.

There was a suggestion to develop a 'Ram Temple Corridor' at Ayodhya on the lines of the under-construction Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor in Varanasi.

According to the sources, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which had spearheaded the Ram Temple movement, was in favour of starting construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya from the 'Ramnavami' festival early next year.

BJP sources here said that the RSS would have a ''major say'' in the formation of the Trust.

Incidentally, Mahant Paramhans Das, a prominent Ayodhya based seer, had a couple of days back demanded that the RSS chief should be ''ex-officio'' chairman of the Trust.

The supreme court in its judgement in the Ayodhya case recently had directed the central government to set up a Trust to construct the Ram Temple.

A section of the seers has also asked Yogi Adityanath to join the proposed Trust as a member.