VHP’S big Ayodhya event to get a push from UP BJP

We have already started mobilizing support for the event. It will be an impressive show. BJP MP FROM UP

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh will mobilize support for the November 25 congregation of Ram devotees in Ayodhya, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad event that could put the Ram Janmabhoomi issue back in focus ahead of next year’s parliamentary election, two leaders of the ruling party said.

The VHP is organising the Dharam Sabha, a meeting of Hindu religious figures, at Bengaluru, Nagpur and Ayodhya on November25and innewdelhion December 9. Senior functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), too, are expected to attend the event.

“We have been asked by party’s leadership to provide whatever support that we can to make the event a success,” a BJP member of parliament from central Uttar Pradesh said on condition of anonymity. “We have already started mobilizing support for the event. It will be an impressive show.”

“We expect a gathering of over 1 lakh at Ayodhya,” VHP spokesman Vinod Bansal claimed. “The event at Delhi will see a turnout of more than 4 lakh.” Another VHP leader said top BJP and RSS leaders are expected to attend the event in Ayodhya and in Delhi.

The gathering is likely to be the biggest in Ayodhya since December 6, 1992, when tens of thousands of ‘Kar Sevaks’ (volunteers) razed the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya . Some leaders say the number of attendees could even be double the expected 100,000.

Already, Karsevakpuram in Ayodhya, the unofficial HQ and official workshop of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, is a hive of activity. VHP’S newly-elected international president Vishnu Sadashiv Kokje is personally supervising preparations for the Dharam Sabha along with the body’s international vice-president Champat Rai.

Rai has a team of volunteers who report back to him every day on the number of households they personally reached out to with invitations for November 25.

The Ram temple is an election promise of the BJP, and the party expects any action on this front to help it consolidate its base in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which it won emphatically in the 2014 parliamentary and 2017 assembly elections. The Bjp-led alliance won 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh in 2014, and stormed to power in the state with a three-fourths majority in 2017.

“Gesticulating about the Ram Temple on the eve of a general election is one of the BJP’S oldest tricks in the book,” Gilles Verniers, assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University said. “The truth is that had the BJP been determined to actually build a temple in Ayodhya, it would have started the work earlier, since it has a majority both at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh.” The VHP is hoping that November 25 sends out a clear message. “It will be a clear message to the Centre that the Hindus are no longer willing to wait for construction of Ram Mandir,” Rai says. The Supreme Court has deferred a case on the issue to January and a clamour for a legislation or executive order to build the temple has been increasing.

Aiding the efforts of the VHP, which is at the forefront of the temple movement is the RSS, the ideological parent of many rightwing organisations including the VHP and the BJP.

RSS Prant Pracharak Kaushal (he goes by only one name) has decentralised the responsibilities to ground-level volunteers entrusted with the task of mobilising people for the Dharam Sabha.

A dedicated team of 40 volunteers of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, is also moving door-to-door to connect with people and invite them to the event.

The Bajrang Dal, another affiliate of the RSS, recently organised a ‘Trishul Diksha’ event all across the state to recruit young people for the Dharam Sabha.

The state government is also involved. In Kanpur, two ministers in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet -- industrial development minister Satish Mahana and micro, small and medium industries and khadi minister Satya Deo Pachauri are coordinating with local RSS leaders . Gyanendra Sachan, Prant Sangh Sanchalak of the RSS, says: “Since the 1990s, Kanpur has always seen maximum participation of Hindus in all movements related to Ram Mandir and Dharam Sabha will be no exception.”

The BJP adopted a resolution at its Palampur convention in June 1989, endorsing the demand for a Ram temple in Ayodhya. RSS’ second in command Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi triggered a row last month when he claimed the outfit was ready to launch a 1992-type agitation for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. In a press statement on October 29, VHP’S working president Alok Kumar reiterated request to the Centre to enact a law to build a temple at the disputed site.

In a recent meeting of RSS regional pracharaks, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat appealed to volunteers to support the VHP and Bajrang Dal in creating mass awareness on Ram temple construction.

The logistics for the event is being handled by a dedicated team of 1,000 VHP volunteers. For the VHP, the ‘Dharam Sabha’ is an opportunity to reassert itself almost after two decades. In the recent past, the Parishad’s image as a votary of Hindu politics had taken a beating with internal bickering in the organisation .

(With inputs from Haider Naqvi in Kanpur, Kenneth John in Allahabad and Sudhir Kumar in Varanasi.)