CPI(M) accuses BJP of ‘politicising’ Ram temple consecration; to skip event

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will not attend the January 22 consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, senior party leader Brinda Karat said on Tuesday as her party slammed the BJP for “politicising” the religious programme.

“Our party will not attend the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya…We respect the religious beliefs but they are connecting a religious programme with politics…This is the politicization of a religious programme. This is not right,” she said.

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The ceremony is to be held a few months before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Shri Ram Janambhoomi Trust has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to place the idol of Lord Ram in the ‘Garbhagriha’  (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.

Ram temple is one of the key issues on which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had fought the 2014 elections. In fact, this was the issue that turned the political fortune of the BJP when party stalwart Lal Krishna Advani led a ‘Rath Yatra’ from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh in 1990.

According to reports, Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the trust overseeing the temple construction in Ayodhya, has sent special invitations to 7,000 people, including 3,000 VVIPs, for the consecration ceremony.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior party leader Sonia Gandhi have also been invited for the mega religious event. However, the opposition party has not yet confirmed its attendance.

According to reports, the Congress is planning to send a delegation of leaders to take part in the mega event.