#AyodhaRamMandir: Devotion Or Political Vendetta

A ‘golden door’ Is being installed at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. This door is about 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. 13 more doors will be installed in the coming 3 days. These doors are being installed on the upper floor of the sanctum sanctorum. A total of 46 doors will be installed in the Ram temple, out of which 42 will be coated with 100 kg gold. Picture : ANI

Stage is set for the grand consecration ceremony at the Ram Lalla Temple at Ayodhya on January 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside over the ceremonial installation of Ram Lalla inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. Earlier, Modi announced a special 11-day ‘anushthan’ (ritual) ahead of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at Ayodhya’s Ram Temple. According to the temple trust, over 7,000 people, including politicians, celebrities, industrialists, saints. Around 100 heads from 55 countries, including ambassadors and MPs, have been invited to the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

According to Swami Vigyananand, founder and global chairman of the World Hindu Foundation, “Around 100 heads from 55 countries, including ambassadors and MPs, will witness Ram Lalla Pran Pratishtha. We have invited the Korean Queen as well, who claims to be Prabhu Sri Ram Vansaj,”. The VVIP foreign delegates will arrive in Lucknow on January 20, and will reach Ayodhya thereafter.
A total of 46 doors will be installed in the Ram Temple, out of which 42 will be coated with gold. All these doors are being installed on the upper floor of the sanctum sanctorum. Of the 46 doors that will be installed in the Ram temple, 42 will be coated with 100 kg gold,” the officials said. In the picture that has surfaced, two elephants in the welcome posture can be seen in the middle panel of the golden door. In the upper part, a palace-like shape can be seen in which two servants are standing with folded hands. Meanwhile, beautiful artworks are inscribed in the four squares at the bottom of the door.

The Ram Lalla idol to be concecrated at the temple has been carved by Karnataka’s renowned sculptor Arun Yogiraj. The current idol of Lord Ram which has been worshipped for the last 70 years, will also be kept in the sanctum sanctorum of the new temple. The auspicious Pran Pratistha will take place on the upcoming Paush Shukla Kurma Dwadashi, Vikram Samvat 2080, falling on January 22 in the Vikram Samvat 2080 calendar. The Pran Pratistha will be held in the ‘Abhijeet Muhurta’ in the afternoon.

While BJP is all gung-ho about the consecration ceremony, the opposition parties have their own reasons for not attending the ceremony, calling it the political vendetta of the Modi government.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said he has not received an invitation for the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple. “I have not been invited to the inauguration of Ram Temple…BJP is doing politics in the name of Ram temple…The ruling party does not have any concrete program to garner people’s support, so it seems they are trying to create a different opinion.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor clarified that he would love to visit the Ram temple one day but not on the day of the ‘grand political extravaganza’. In a post on X, Tharoor said, “Was interrogated by the waiting press, wanting to know if I would be going to Ayodhya. I told them I hadn’t been invited but I saw religion as a personal attribute and not one for political (mis)use.”

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said that she was unlikely to attend the ceremony. A Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader told PTI, “There is no question of Mamata Banerjee or any other representative of the TMC attending the Ram Mandir inauguration at Ayodhya next month. We don’t believe in mixing politics with religion.”

CPI (M) will not be attending the event. Party leader Brinda Karat said, “No, we will not go. We respect the religious beliefs… but they are connecting a religious program with politics. Using religion as a political weapon or to advance a political agenda is not right.”

Congress party issued an official statement, stating, it was respectfully declining the invitation to attend the ceremony. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, were among the few leaders who were invited. “Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in our country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya,” read the release. The Congress has alleged that the inauguration of the ‘incomplete temple’ has been brought forward by the ruling party ‘for electoral gains’ and that the consecration ceremony is ‘an RSS/BJP event’.

Certainly, attending or not attending the consecration ceremony is no parameter to judge anyone’s belief in Lord Ram. However, after decades of fighting for it’s existence in his own home, definitely deserves celebration!