New Delhi: While on his second outreach walkathon ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tuesday reiterated his party leadership’s stand as he said that the RSS and BJP had made the 22 January Ram temple pran pratishtha “a completely political Narendra Modi function”.
Speaking to reporters in Kohima, Nagaland, he said this was the precise reason why Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge had said that he would not attend the ceremony.
Kharge, along with Sonia Gandhi and Congress’s Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, have declined the 22 January invite — calling it a “political project of the BJP and the RSS”.
Rahul said that the party was open to “all religions, all practices”, but the “biggest authorities of the Hindu religion” had also made their views public about what they thought about the 22 January “political” function.
Last week, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) working president Alok Kumar had told PTI that none of the four Shankaracharyas (heads of the four religious mutts) would attend the ceremony.
In a video however, Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, the 46th Shankaracharya of the Jyotir Mutt, said the decision of the four shankaracharyas should not be construed as being “anti-Modi” but was taken because they didn’t want to be “anti-shastra”.
Rahul said that it was, therefore, difficult for the Congress to attend a political function designed around the Prime Minister and the RSS. “We made it clear that whoever wants to visit the Ram Temple among our partners, our party… is more than welcome. But it is difficult for us to go.”
There is, however, angst within the Congress over the top leadership’s decision to skip the Ram Temple inauguration, with some leaders calling it “unfortunate” and “suicidal”.
The high command defended its stance by saying in a statement that the BJP and its ideological parent RSS had “brought forward the inauguration of the incomplete temple for electoral gain”.
Gujarat Congress working president Ambarish Der, however, believes such statements were disappointing for state Congress workers like him.
He wrote in a post on X: “It is natural that the faith of countless people across India has been attached to this newly-constructed temple over the years. Some people of the Congress party should maintain distance from that particular kind of statement and respect the public sentiment wholeheartedly.”
‘My yatra is ideological’
Rahul Gandhi exuded confidence Tuesday about the Opposition INDIA alliance’s chances against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but added that his cross-country march from the east to the west was ideological.
“I see the INDIA alliance placed very well. But this yatra is ideological. It is designed to place certain issues on the table, particularly that of injustice which is taking place in this country. We will fight the election campaign and take part in the election process. But this yatra is an alternative vision to what the BJP portrays,” he told a reporter.
Rahul’s second march, which began from Imphal on 14 January, will cover 6,713 kilometres over 66 days, passing through 15 states, with some of the journey by car. It will end in Mumbai on 20 March.
“I wanted this march to be on foot. But that would have been very long and there was not much time. So, this is a hybrid yatra,” he told reporters.
Also read: Nagaland people should feel equal to all others in country: Rahul Gandhi