Lok Sabha election: Amit Shah warns of ‘Babri lock’ as Ram Mandir continues to dominate poll narrative

Vibha Sharma

Chandigarh, May 8

Halfway past the 2024 General Election and the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya continues to dominate the poll narrative and BJP leadership’s election rallies.

Speaking in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, Home Minister Amit Shah hit out at INDIA bloc parties, warning that if the opposition coalition comes to power it will put a ‘Babri’ lock at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The provocation was Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav’s latest statement on Ram temple.

“Ram Gopal says the temple is ‘bekar’ (useless). Remember, though it is not going to happen, if the opposition parties come to power they will put a ‘Babri naam ka tala’ at the Ram temple”, Shah was quoted as saying, also accusing the Congress of stalling the Ram temple for 70 years.

What Yadav said

On Tuesday, a TV channel quoted Yadav as saying: “I worship Lord Ram every day. Some people have done the patent on Ram Navami. But, that mandir (Ram Temple in Ayodhya) is ‘bekaar’ (useless). It’s not how temples are built. The design and map of the temple is not according to vaastu.”

This led to the who’s who of the BJP taking to the arena to slam Yadav for his comments.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath accused the opposition alliance of “playing with people’s faith due to vote bank politics”.

“They have always opposed the Ram temple in Ayodhya. ‘Vinaash kale viprit buddhi’. Whatever Ram Gopal Yadav said is an insult to Sanatan beliefs,” he said.

Adding to it, BJP’s Rajya Sabha leader Sudhanshu Trivedi claimed “Haj House in Ghaziabad is good for them but Ram mandir is useless for them. Agra Mughal Garden is good and Ram Mandir ‘bekar’. INDIA bloc should speak on this. Would you want to lock Ram Mandir again?”

Catering to respective vote banks

Observers say there are several reasons why Ram Mandir continues to dominate the ongoing polls.

“If some opposition leaders had attended the consecration ceremony, maybe they would have blunted the issue, but they did not. The fact is like BJP has a vote bank, opposition parties also have vote banks. Everyone is catering to their respective vote banks”, they say.

So far as the BJP is concerned, it is making Ram Mandir a live example of a “promise fulfilled”.

As Shah also told the rally, “when you made Modi the Prime Minister for the second time, he not only won the legal dispute involving the Ram Janmabhoomi, but also performed the ‘bhoomi puja’  of the temple and the ‘pran pratishtha’ in January.”

From two to 303

Observers say that Ram Mandir has been an integral part of the BJP’s incredible journey from two Lok Sabha seats as a fledgling party to 303 in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

It was sometime around the time when the BJP won just two seats of the 543 Lok Sabha seats (in 1984) that the Ram Janmabhoomi movement also started gaining momentum, giving the party the distinctive Hindutva edge and dedicated cadres based around the idea.

“Ram Mandir featured in every BJP manifesto, helping its political rise. However, around the late 1990s, the party decided to tweak its stance on issues like temple construction, Uniform Civil Code etc, which is perceived as one of the reasons for Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government losing power in 2004. It is no wonder therefore that the saffron party is continuing to make the most of the time-tested issue in these elections,” say observers.