Saints, govt heading for a ‘ showdown’

TROUBLE Both sides get down to ‘business’ ahead of 84-kos yatra

While it’s difficult to tell how things will unfold in Ayodhya on Sunday, the temperature along the banks of Saryu in the temple town has surely started rising.

On the one hand the Sangh Parivar, having announced its decision to defy the UP government ban on 20-day chaurasi kos yatra from Sunday, is busy sounding its cadres to play up the ‘Hindu pride’ factor in the six districts around Ayodhya from where the VHP-backed saints plan to take out the yatra for the temple cause, on the other the state government on Wednesday started mobilizing police force to checkmate any move to take out the yatra.

The local administration in fact has plans to set up 25 temporary jails in various schools and colleges to detain saints on Sunday.

The VHP and saffron cadres in 600 villages across six districts of Faizabad, Ambedkarnagar, Gonda, Basti, Bahraich and Barabanki through which the VHP plans to take out the yatra have been asked to ‘remain alert’.

VHP sources said its organizational units in 40 places across 600 villages of the six districts, through which saints are expected to travel, had been asked to ensure ‘execution of the saffron plan’.

VHP’s regional-organisational secretary Mahaveer, central secretaries Koteshwar Sharma and Shiv Das Singh are in contact with the VHP workers in the 600 villages, sources added.

A VHP insider said there were possibilities of local leaders in Ayodhya going underground to counter the state government plan to get them arrested or put them under house arrest.

“The situation is getting tense. You can feel it already,” Riyaz Ahmad Ansari, gram pradhan of Shahjahapur village in Ayodhya, told HT on phone.

Karsewakpuram – t he local Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) camp in Ayodhya -- is virtually under siege now. Karsewakpuram also houses the workshop where carved stones for the proposed Ram temple are kept.

Ayodhya MLA and minister Tej Narayan Pandey, however, stated that the proposed parikrama was only a political stunt of the RSS.