Build Ram temple at the earliest, says RSS chief Has BJP forgotten its promise to build Ram temple: Uddhav
Fundamentalist forces are obstructing the process, Mohan Bhagwat says in Nagpur
NAGPUR/NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to consider introducing legislation for the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, cautioning that it was “in nobody’s interest to test the patience of society without any reason.” Bhagwat’s comments drew flak from critics of the RSS who linked the timing to key state elections at the year-end leading up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The demand for the legislation, earlier made by RSS affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is in contrast to the Sangh’s earlier stance of waiting for a Supreme Court decision on the issue.
The top court is expected to start hearing the main Ayodhya title suit from October 29, after it declined to refer to a larger bench the “questionable observation” in its 1994 verdict that a “mosque is not an essential part of the practice of Islam”.
“This matter of national interest is being obstructed by some fundamentalist elements and forces that play communal politics for selfish gains. Despite such machinations, the decision regarding ownership of the land should be expedited, and the government should clear the path for construction of the grand temple through appropriate and requisite law,” Bhagwat said, delivering the annual Vijaydashami speech in Nagpur. The RSS is the ideological fount of the ruling BJP. Bhagwat minced no words in blaming political parties for politicising Ram Temple’s construction on the disputed site in Ayodhya where Babri Masjid once stood, and which Hindu organisations say marks the birthplace of Lord Ram. If it weren’t for political machinations, the temple would have been constructed long ago, he said. “The place of Janmabhoomi is yet to be allocated for construction of the temple although all kinds of evidence have affirmed that there was a temple at that place. There is an obvious game plan of a few elements to stall judgment by presenting newer interventions in the judicial process,” he said.
CONTINUED ON P 12 ››RELATED REPORT, P10 MUMBAI: If the BJP government is not going to pave the way to build a Ram temple at Ayodhya, then Prime Minister Narendra Modi should admit that it was an election “jumla” (fake promise), Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said at the party’s annual Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park on Thursday.
Hindutva and the contentious Ram temple issue were at the forefront of Thackeray’s speech, in which he portrayed the Sena as the primary carriers of the agenda.
He said Sena was in government only for the sake of Hindutva. He said he would visit Ayodhya on November 25, and asked why Modi had not gone there after being sworn in as PM in May 2014. “You go to countries that we would not have seen even in geography textbooks,” Thackeray said. “But why haven’t you gone to Ayodhya? I will go to Ayodhya on November 25 and ask PM Modi this.”
Thackeray said he was going to Ayodhya to remind the BJP about building the temple.
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