Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has described the consecration ceremony of Ram Temple in Ayodhya as an event for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to get political mileage.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Congress bigwigs – President Mallikarjun Kharge, former president Sonia Gandhi and the party’s Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury – have turned down the invitation to the temple opening on January 22, calling it a “BJP-RSS” event.
“Our party has many members who believe in many faiths and they are welcome to practice them. Hindus in the party have every right to offer prayers to Ram Lalla. But the party felt that going for a political event – for an incomplete temple because the work is not over)… The timing of this (‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony) appears to be designed to benefit the political interests of the ruling party (BJP). And therefore, if we participate, then it will become a political choice, not just a personal one and people need to understand this as well,” a Press Trust of India report quoted Tharoor as saying.—KMS
