Ram, Lakshman, Buddha — Akhilesh goes on temple run like Rahul, invites ‘soft-Hindutva’ jibe

From Ayodhya to Chitrakoot and Farrukhabad, the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has been on a temple-hopping spree in recent months.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav (extreme right) at the Kamadgiri Temple in Chitrakoot that he visited on 8 January | Twitter/Akhilesh Yadav

New Delhi: The BJP’s continued rhetoric around Hindutva, it appears, is now forcing opposition leaders to follow suit.   

After former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was accused of peddling soft Hindutva, a reference to a spate of his visits to temples, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is facing similar charges. 

Much like what Rahul did ahead of assembly elections in Gujarat in 2017 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh has been visiting temples across the northern region. 

The SP chief had on 15 December last year even landed up at Ayodhya, where the Ram Mandir is being built, to emphasise on all the “religious work” his party has done in the city. 

“Lord Rama belongs to the Samajwadi Party. We are Ram bhakts (devotees) and Krishna bhakts,” he had then said. 

Since then, the former UP chief minister has been visiting temples on a regular basis. 

He was at the famous Lakshman Pahari Temple in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh, on 8 January. On the same day, he also visited the Kamadgiri Temple in Chitrakoot. Pictures of the former CM doing a full 5.5 km parikrama of the temple have surfaced on social media.

On 10 January, he tweeted a photo with a caption: “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna- Hare Hare.”

Ten days later, the SP chief was at the Vimalnath temple at Farrukhabad in UP and, on 24 January, he visited the Buddha Temple at Shravasti.

He has also been meeting saints and seeking their blessings — pictures of these meetings are constantly posted on his official Twitter handle. 

On 4 January, he had also announced that no tax would be collected from religious places if his party was elected to power in assembly polls next year. 

This spurt of temple visits, political analysts in UP say, is an attempt by Akhilesh to shed his pro-Muslim image, a tag that the BJP often attempts to identify him with.

‘Soft hindutva a political compulsion’

Analysts say that the BJP has set a Hindutva template, especially in Uttar Pradesh, leaving opposition leaders like Akhilesh with little choice but to join the bandwagon.   

“The BJP is constantly changing its political vocabulary. It talks about Rama one day and on the next, it brings in Suheldev,” said Professor Badri Narayan of the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute in Prayagraj.   

“To counter this political discourse, taking a soft Hindutva stand has become a political compulsion for opposition parties,” Narayan said. “This compulsion is very visible in states such as UP and Bihar because the common Hindutva sense has changed here.”

Sudhir Panwar, a professor at Lucknow University and a former member of the UP planning commission, said that more than compulsion, it is political consumption. 

“I would not call it political compulsion; it is rather political consumption. The common Hindu voters want to see their leader exhibit their faith,” Panwar said. “Earlier, leaders like Akhilesh Yadav kept their faith personal. This helped the BJP to tag him or anybody as being anti-Hindu. But the moment his visits to temples are publicised, the BJP will not have the ground to play the ‘who is Hindu and who is anti-Hindu’ politics,” he added.

“I feel soft Hindutva and pro-Muslims are shades given by BJP for non-BJP Hindu leaders to classify them as inferior.” 

The ruling BJP, however, accuses Akhilesh of symbolism but says his temple-hopping is a victory as it has forced Socialists to embrace Hindutva politics. 

“Those who called Ram imaginary are now saying Ram belongs to everyone,” Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said after Akhilesh’s December statements.  

A BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said, “The SP can not afford to lose its Yadav vote-share. Ahirs (which includes Yadavs) are now more inclined towards Hindutva and this is visible in the electoral results too.

“They (SP) got reduced to 47 seats in 2017 from 224 seats in 2012. Their vote share has also shrunk,” he added. “They even lost many seats in their Yadav strongholds such as Etah, Firozabad, Badaun and Kannauj.”

‘BJP hurt as it cannot term anyone anti-Hindu now’

The SP, however, dismissed the BJP charges.  

“Soft Hindutva is a term planted by the BJP as the party cannot brand any political leader as being anti-Hindu now,” a close aide of Akhilesh Yadav told ThePrint. “Has Akhilesh stopped wishing people on Eid or sending a chadar to Ajmer Sharif? No, he has been visiting all cultural places during his recent visits.”

The close aide said the SP’s chief’s temple visits were amplified when he visited Chitrakoot.

“Why is the BJP upset over this? Is it because it now cannot do politics of who is anti-Hindu and who is not? All this started with the Chitrakoot visit as if it was the first time. Ahkilesh has been there many times before.” 

A UP Congress functionary also backed Akhilesh. “We are also accused of playing soft Hindutva,” he said. “Everybody knows that both Akhikesh and his father are religious. The only difference is that earlier, the temple visit photos were not significant either to the BJP or the media.”

A senior Samajwadi Party leader, who did not wish to be named, however, said more needs to be done on this front.

“We have started publishing these photos recently but the BJP has been doing this for decades. Countering their natak (drama) isn’t easy,” the leader said. “The temple visits should move beyond symbolism. Right now, it all looks symbolic, be it that of Akhilesh or Priyanka Gandhi.”