VHP has decisive majority in trust

The VHP, a body of the RSS, will have full decisive control over the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, with only a minority role to five outsiders, including three exofficio members including the Ayodhya collector.

Only outsiders in the trust are Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, a descendant of the Ayodhya rulers and Mahant Dinendra Das, head of Ayodhya’s Nirmohi Akhada, imposed by the Supreme Court in its verdict. They are not associated to the RSS or the VHP.

Trust Chairman Mahant Nritya Gopal Das (81), an Ayodhyabased saint who heads the Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas, a trust created by the VHP in January 1993 after a month of the Babri Mosque demolition, Swami Vasudevanand Saraswati, Swami Parmanand, Swami Vishwa Prasannatheerth, Swami Govinddev Giri are in the ‘’margdarshak mandal’’ of the VHP. Chapat Rai (73), a former physics teacher, is the vice-president of the VHP while K Parasaran (92), a former attorney general and senior advocate, is the legal adviser of the VHP and associated with the RSS. The Nirmohi Akhada was one of the litigants in the Ayodhya land title suit and as such the Supreme Court decreed that it must have one of the trustees of the Ram temple trust. Mahant Dinendra Das, hailing from Gujarat who took over as the Akhada head after the death of Dharam Das in September 2017, has already struck a discordant note by staking his Akhada’s right for prayers, pointing out that it has been praying the Ram Lala Virajman idol installed in a makeshift temple all these years.