Ram temple issue could have been resolved long back: SP leader

BALLIA: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Govind Chaudhary said here on Friday that the Ram temple issue could have been sorted out long back had the Babri mosque not been demolished.

“The Ram temple issue would have been resolved but then L K Advani took out a rath yatra and the demolition took place,” the leader of the Opposition in UP assembly told reporters here.

“This stalled the issue,” he added.

Chaudhary held the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS responsible for a Ram temple not coming up at the disputed site in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.

In 1990, BJP leader L K Advani had taken out a rath yatra in support of the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, but was arrested in Bihar in the middle of the yatra.

The SP leader referred to the installation in 1949 of the Ram idol at the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi dispute site, which was locked up due to the tension that followed.“The then c ief minister of UP Vir Bahadur Singh got the locks opened and a ‘shilanyas’ (for the temple) done, through the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi,” he said referring to the 1989 event.“The matter could have been resolved at that time itself but Advaniji took out the rath yatra,” he said. The SP leader said for his party Lord Ram was a matter of belief and was revered, but the BJP considered him as its ‘vote devta’ (deity which brings in the votes). “The manner in which the BJP is cashing on the name of Lord Ram and speaking untruth, it has earned the ire of the Lord,” Chaudhary said.