By – Shubhdendra Singh Rajawat
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘political Narendra Modi function’ barb at the Ram Temple dedication ceremony.
Rahul Gandhi, a Congress MP, criticized the Ram temple consecration ceremony on Tuesday, calling it a political Narendra Modi event.
“The RSS and the BJP have turned the 22nd of January function into a purely political Narendra Modi event.” It’s an RSS BJP celebration, and I believe that’s why the Congress President declared he wouldn’t go. “We are open to all religions and practices,” Gandhi declared at a press conference in Nagaland’s capital, Kohima, during his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
“Even Hindu religious authorities, the biggest Hindu religious authorities, have made their views on the 22nd January function, that it is a political function, public.” So it is difficult for us to attend a political celebration centered on the Prime Minister of India and the RSS,” Gandhi remarked.
Gandhi’s announcement came only days after the Congress denied an invitation to the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ celebration, stating that its party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, former President Sonia Gandhi, and Cong floor leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will not attend.
The Congress had claimed in a statement that “it has been evidently brought forward for electoral gain that the leaders of the [ruling] BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] and [its ideological fountainhead] the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] inaugurate the incomplete temple.”
The ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony’s seven-day rites got underway on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside over the main consecration event on January 22. Prominent saints, actors, businesspeople, and athletes will all be present for the lavish celebration.
“The ‘anushthan’ has started and will last through January 22, the day of the rite of consecration. Chief priest Acharya Satyendra Das of the Ram temple told PTI that eleven priests are carrying out the rites that invoke all of the “devis and devtas” (goddesses and gods).