The Congress is in a cleft stick over the invitation by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust to attend the Pran Pratishtha or consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22. Aware of the political gains set to flow to the BJP from the ceremony, coming on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress finds itself stranded in a political minefield and struggling to craft a position which will not cause much electoral damage.
The issue could stir discord in the INDIA alliance too. While the CPI(M) has officially declared that its general secretary Sitaram Yechury will not attend the eventwhile criticising the BJP and RSS for mixing religion and politics, the Trinamool Congress has signaled that Mamata Banerjee too may stay away. Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav, the wife of party president Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, has said that she would attend if invited.
On Wednesday, NCP president Sharad Pawar said that while he hadn’t been invited to the inauguration of the Ram temple, the party was happy that it was coming up “for which many have contributed”, as per a PTI report. About the BJP, Pawar said: “Don’t know if it is using the issue for political or commercial purposes.”
In Kerala, an affiliate of Congress ally IUML questioned the party’s failure to take a clear stand on the issue, saying it was such wavering that had led to the party’s electoral decline.
Caught in a bind, the Congress is yet to come out with an official view. Many leaders told The Indian Express they were trying to frame a nuanced position, given the sensitivities involved.
In the Congress, the temple trust has extended invitations to party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Asked whether he planned to attend the ceremony, Chowdhury told The Indian Express that the party will decide. Admitting that he had been invited “formally, with all courtesy”, he added that the build-up to the consecration by the BJP and RSS reflected “religion as well as a political ambition… It is very clear”.
Among those in the party openly in favour of it attending the event is senior leader Digvijaya Singh, who wears his Hinduism on his sleeve and has often taken on the BJP over issues of Hindutva.
The temple trust does not belong to any party and was set up by the national government, Digvijaya said recently, adding that either Sonia Gandhi or a delegation of the party would go. “She (Sonia) has always been very positive on these issues. The party has to take a stand. I am with the party… whatever the party decides,” he told The Indian Express Wednesday.
Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor’s position reflected why no course is easy for the Congress. “Personally, I believe religious faith is a personal matter and should not be seen politically, or misused politically. I hope each of the invitees is left free to make a personal choice, rather than be described as ‘anti-Hindu’ if they don’t go, or ‘playing into the BJP’s hands’ if they do attend,” he told The Indian Express.
Tharoor added: “Speaking for myself as a Hindu, I see a temple as a place to connect with the divine rather than a stage for political theatre. I would love to visit the Ram temple one day, but not during a grand political extravaganza like the inauguration and not before the elections, so that no political statement is read into my going.”
The issue had also come up for a brief mention at the meeting of the CWC last week, where a senior leader urged the party to sit down and come up with a clear position on the matter.
“We have to formulate a very clear line consistent with our past positions and given the sensitivity of the matter, as the BJP is going to completely polarise the Hindi heartland. Therefore, it has to be a very nuanced and correct narrative. We are not handling the issue carefully… We are treating such a sensitive matter in a very casual and cavalier manner… We are treating the issue as if kuchch nahin hai, chalta hai (all is normal, things happen),” a leader said.
Another leader pointed out that not going would leave the Congress open to charges of “boycotting the temple”. “Frankly speaking, the State had no business constructing the temple. But now, what do you do? It is not an easy situation. We are not in a happy situation. We have to be very clear as to what would be the articulation from the Congress… the position clearly explained. Otherwise, we will get hit hard in the heartland,” the leader said.
What the party would want less of are statements such as by Sam Pitroda, the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress. “… When the nation is all involved in Ram Temple… diya jalao (light lamps)… that bothers me. To me religion is a personal thing. Don’t confuse it with the national agenda. The national agenda should focus on education, employment, growth, economy, inflationhealth, environment, pollution… All that is not discussed. The talk is about the Hindu temple and Lord Ram. This is not how you build a modern nation,” he told ANI.
His remarks were immediately criticised by the BJP.
And by some in the Congress. A Congress leader said: “The Congress has not taken a final position and people like Pitroda are jumping in and pronouncing a final statement. These are the things which hurt us in the last election. Remember his ‘hua toh hua (what happened, happened)’ comment on the anti-Sikh riots.”
