VHP defers Ram temple agitation by four months

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 5

After raising the pitch, right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad today said it had decided to put on the hold its agitation for Ram Mandir for the next four months to “avoid any politics on the issue”.

“We are putting on hold our protests for four months because we don’t want to make it a ‘chunavi mudda’ (election issue).When we do not have the land (the disputed site), what is the use of carrying on with the agitations. The issue will always be alive for us, we are just putting it on hold. As soon as the elections are over, we will be back with our demand,” said senior VHP leader Surendra Jain.

“What the people decide (in the coming LS elections) we do not know. But we’re sure whoever is in power, whichever party forms government, they will listen to our demand of building a grand Ram Temple,” Jain said, days after the much-publicised VHP ‘dharma sansad’ in Kumbh where, contrary to demands of saints and seers demanding a date for construction in Ayodhya, the Sangh had reposed faith in the Narendra Modi government and decided to drop the demand of immediate commencement of construction till the formation of the new government.

Addressing the concluding session there, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had also assured the saints that the temple would be built but after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“Otherwise the Opposition will accuse us of constructing the temple for electoral gains,” he claimed, even as earlier he had said the majority Hindu community would settle for nothing less than a grand temple at the Ram janmabhoomi as soon as possible.

As the Lok Sabha elections approach, various Hindu organisations had been mounting pressure on the Modi government for a grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya with the Sangh leading the charge.

The VHP had been building up the temple issue with “dharma sabhas” at various places in Ayodhya, Bengaluru, Delhi Nagpur and Mumbai, demanding a legislation/ordinance from the government to facilitate the building of the temple.

Meanwhile, a group led by the Shankaracharya of Dwarkapeeth Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati also declared February 21 as the date when ‘shilaniyas’ would be done at Ayodhya, terming “all issues related to ‘Sanatan Dharma’, including Ram Temple, followed by a dharmadesh” were prerogative of the sant samaj and not of a political organisation like the BJP or its sister concern in the Sangh Parivar the VHP.

Swaroopanand has been critical of the BJP and the RSS, accusing them of having “caused the biggest damage to the ideals of Hinduism in recent years”. Sources, meanwhile, said the VHP slowdown was aimed at avoiding controversies that might go contrary to the BJP’s aim to appear inclusive.

‘Will always be alive’

The issue will always be alive for us, we are just putting it on hold. As soon as the elections are over, we will be back with our demand. Surendra Jain, VHP leader