New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the party’s Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will not attend the 22 January inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the party announced Wednesday.
The Congress said that the invitation to its top leaders was being declined because the inauguration was “clearly an RSS/BJP event”.
Party general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh sent out a statement Wednesday, saying Kharge, Sonia and Adhir were sent invites to the event last month.
“Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in the country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP has made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya,” the statement read.
Ramesh said the inauguration of the “incomplete temple” by leaders of the BJP and RSS “has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain”.
“While abiding by the 2019 Supreme Court judgement, and honouring the sentiments of millions who revere Lord Ram, Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Smt Sonia Gandhi and Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have respectfully declined the invitation to what is clearly an RSS/BJP event,” he said.
The three were the only ones from the top leadership of the Congress to receive an invitation to the event.
Kharge was invited in his capacity as the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Sonia as the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party and Adhir as leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha.
Congress sources told ThePrint Wednesday that the decision had been taken after deliberation between the three.
The decision comes days after Congress national general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Avinash Pande announced that he, along with several general secretaries, UP state president and the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader in the state assembly, would visit Ayodhya for “darshan” on 15 January.
In 2019, when the Supreme Court had delivered the judgment on building the Ram Temple, the Congress had said: “The Indian National Congress respects the verdict of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya case.”
Then party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala also said the party supported the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
With its decision not to attend the inauguration, the Congress has joined several other INDIA alliance parties that have refused the invite, accusing the BJP of “politicising” the event. Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Shiv Sena (UBT) are among the parties which have decided to stay away.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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