GG News Bureau
Sabroom, 6th Jan. Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced on Thursday that the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be completed by January 1, 2024, the year of the Lok Sabha elections.
Political foes of the BJP interpret this as a sign that Ram Mandir, a platform raised by the saffron camp ever since BJP leader L K Advani embarked on a Rath Yatra to focus on the topic in 1990, may once again serve as a pillar of the saffron party’s campaign in the upcoming general election.
“Rahul baba, listen from Sabroom that a mammoth Ram Mandir will be ready on January 1, 2024,” he said, referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on a 3500-kilometer march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
Earlier this week, the secretary of the Ram Mandir Trust, Champat Rai, and the chief priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, Acharya Satyendra Das, issued separate statements thanking Gandhi for the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Advani’s Rath Yatra was seen as a major factor in the BJP’s rise in the 1990s, after the party had been politically weakened by both the election of Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 and the Mandal Commission award in the late 1980s, which saw regional parties championing the cause of OBCs gain strength.
The Rath Yatra also saw the birth of a movement calling for the destruction of Ayodhya’s 16th-century Mosque, which some believed was the site of Lord Ram’s birth place. It culminated in the mosque’s public destruction by saffron brigade volunteers in December 1992.
Addressing a public rally in Sabroom, Tripura, where assembly elections are scheduled for early this year, Shah stated that the Congress and Communists had long placed the Ram Mandir issue in the hands of the courts, whereas Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the groundwork for it following the Supreme Court’s order permitting construction.
The main opposition parties in the BJP-ruled northeastern state are the Congress and the CPI(M), and there are indications that the two will fight the assembly election together. The Trinamool Congress and the Tripura Motha party, led by the scion of the Tripura royal family, are the state’s other major political forces.
On November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court, after a decades-long legal battle, cleared the way for the construction of the Ram temple in the disputed site of Ayodhya, where the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992.
On August 5, 2020, the prime minister performed the “Bhoomi puja” for the temple’s construction.
Reacting to Shah’s announcement, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury termed it as the roll-out of the “election slogan for 2024. “Instead of bothering about the problems besetting our country, he is announcing a slogan for the next election,” the prominent Congress leader and MP from Berhampore said.
The Trinamool Congress, which is also attempting to gain a foothold in Tripura and other North Eastern states, has stated that the BJP should not try to gain political mileage from the temple’s construction.
“It is good that Ram Mandir will be ready by January 1 next year. But BJP or any other political party should not try to claim credit for it.
“Lord Ram belongs to everyone and is not a property of the BJP. It is the court’s verdict that paved the way for Ram Mandir, so BJP should not try to claim political mileage out of it,” senior TMC leader Sougata Roy said.
CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Bhattacharya responded, saying that it is clear that the BJP is attempting to divide the country “in the name of religion and Ram.” He said that the Indian Constitution’s basic motto is “unity in diversity,” referring to the country’s reputation as a melting pot of cultures.
“BJP does not believe in that, they are after Hindu rashtra which is against the basic concept of the Indian Constitution,” Bhattacharya, a senior advocate and a former Advocate General of Tripura, said.
Shah launched a BJP rath yatra in Sabroom, South Tripura district, the second of the day after Dharmanagar, North Tripura district, to highlight the state government’s achievements.
The country is safe in Modi’s hands, according to the union minister.
“Ten days after the Pulwama incident in Kashmir, Indian soldiers went inside Pakistan and carried out a successful operation under Modi’s leadership,” he pointed out.
On February 14, 2019, a suicide bomber attacked a CRPF convoy in Pulwama district, killing 40 people. On February 26, the Indian Air Force raided a terrorist camp in Balakot, Pakistan.
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