The Congress party on Thursday (26th October), raised questions over the inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya which is scheduled to happen on 24th of January, 2024. It seemed that the party desperately wanted to be part of the event as it questioned why only BJP and PM Modi were extended the invitation to the inauguration.
Congress leader Salman Khurshid raised the question around the inauguration ceremony and asked whether the invitation was being sent to only one party. “Is this becoming a party event now? God belongs to everyone. Every party should have received the invitation. They should have at least made it clear that everyone will be invited. I have not come across any such statement,” the Congress leader was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath said that he was happy that the Ram Mandir is being built but expressed unhappiness over PM Modi being invited by the temple trust for the event. “Does the Ram Mandir belong to the BJP? It belongs to everyone in our country. It is a very big symbol of our Sanatana Dharma. I am very happy that the Ram Mandir is finally being built,” he said.
This is after the Shri Ram Janambhoomi Trust invited Prime Minister Modi on 25th October to inaugurate the temple and establish Lord Ram’s idol in the Garbhagriha of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024. PM Modi also welcomed the invitation and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to witness such a historic event.
While the Congress leaders accused the BJP of allegedly politicizing the construction and inauguration of Ram Mandir ahead of the 2024 General Elections, it seemed that the leaders desperately wanted to be part of the event. The leaders expressed happiness over the inauguration ceremony of the Hindu temple and also ‘lauded’ the Sanatan Dharma ahead of the elections.
The Congress has always played safe when things have revolved around the Ram Mandir. They made all the attempts to please the Hindus and the Islamists but ended up standing by the Islamists for the votes. Some of the Congress leaders expressed happiness over the Ram Mandir while maximum of the party leaders have criticized the construction of the Ram Mandir in favor of the Islamists in the past.
Congress leaders mocking Ram Mandir, insulting Lord Rama
It is to be recalled how Congress leaders and its allies have refused to believe in the existence of Lord Rama and mocked the construction of the Ram temple. Recently, DMK leader TKS Elangovan described Lord Rama’s birth as ‘mythology’ and alleged that the BJP was trying to replace history with mythology.
“They have demolished history and replaced it with mythology. Any country should be proud of its history, it should know the history. Ram’s birth is mythology, it is a story from Ramayana. It is literature. They want to replace history with mythology. That is what the BJP is trying to do. With these people in power, what can we expect?… He wants to make use of it as a political tool. He is not interested in Ram. BJP does not consider Ram as an important thing but their political gain becomes important so they are making use of Ram for their political gains,” the leader was quoted as saying.
Also, in June 2023, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘mentor’ Sam Pitroda mocked the Hindu deities while accusing the BJP of focusing only on religious matters. “We have a problem with unemployment, inflation, education, health. No one talks about these things. But everyone talks about Ram, Hanuman, mandir,” he had said during an event hosted by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The video of the incident had massively gone viral over the internet then.
Further, Kapil Sibal who was earlier a member of Congress had appeared for the Sunni Waqf Board and Babri Masjid Action Committee in the Supreme Court to term the case as a ‘trap’ laid by the BJP. “This judgment is going to have huge political ramifications. A party is pushing its manifesto. The court should not fall into a trap. This is nothing but a trap,” he had said in the year 2017. Sibal was then slammed by the netizens for the choice of his clients and the stance taken by him.
Sibal had been accusing the BJP of using the Ram Mandir issue for its political gains. He recently reiterated his stance saying that ‘no one becomes Ram by building Ram Mandir. People must learn to walk on the path of Ram.”
In the year 2018, Congress leader P Chidambaram mocked the idea of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and said that BJP was only focusing on building temples and giant statues. “At the beginning of five years, the promise is for Development, Jobs, and Money in every citizen’s bank account. Nothing was achieved, but at the end of five years, the new promise was for grand temples, giant statues, and doles,” he was quoted as saying. The BJP then slammed the leader for playing with the sentiments of Hindus.
As if denying the reality of Lord Ram wasn’t enough, the grand old party of India in 2022 came up with fresh ways to ridicule Hinduism. The leaders compared Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to Lord Rama as the former embarked on his political stunt called ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole in a statement compared Congress senior leader Rahul Gandhi to the Hindu Lord Ram saying that it is a coincidence that the names of both begin with “R”. “Even Lord Sri Ram walked (PadaYatra) from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and even Shankaracharya walked the same way, and so is Rahul Gandhi doing in the form of padayatra,” Patole added.
Nana Patole’s remark came after Rajasthan Minister Parsadi Lal Meena said that Rahul Gandhi walked more than Lord Ram walked from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka. “Rahul Gandhi’s padayatra will be historic. Lord Ram too had gone from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka on foot. Rahul Gandhi is walking even more than that, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir,” Meena had said.
Further, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President K Sudhakaran also ridiculed Bhagwan Sri Ram, Sri Lakshman, and Sita Mata by distorting Ramayana. He stated in a recent video interview with The New Indian Express (TNIE) that while returning from Lanka on the Pushpaka Vimanam, after defeating Ravana, Lakshman briefly entertained the thought of pushing his brother, Lord Ram, into the sea and go away with his wife Sita.
K Sudhakaran made these bizarre comments while stating that there are significant distinctions between lawmakers from Kerala’s northern and southern regions.
Congress denied the existence of Lord Ram, opposed Ram Mandir
In 2020, ahead of Ayodhya Ram Mandir Bhoomi Pujan on August 5, Zee News conducted a discussion on Ayodhya and Ram Mandir. In a shocking display of ignorance, Congress leader Kumar Ketkar denied the historical existence of Shri Ram and cast aspersions about the Hindu God being a creation of literature.
In September 2007, the Central government run by Congress-led UPA 1 had said that there is no historical proof of Lord Ram’s existence.
An affidavit filed by the Congress-led government read, “Valmiki Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas admittedly form an important part of ancient Indian literature, but these cannot be said to be historical records to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters and occurrences of events depicted therein.” The affidavit was filed to register the UPA government’s opposition to the demand to scrap the Sethusamudram project as it would damage the Ram Setu.
Senior Congress leader of the time, Kapil Sibal fought the Ram Janmabhoomi case for the Sunni Waqf Board opposing the building of a magnificent Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. He also employed dilatory tactics and asked the apex court to delay the decision in the Ram Janmabhoomi case till the 2019 elections. Another eminent Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had earlier claimed that no ‘good Hindu’ would want a Ram Mandir at Babri site. Tharoor urged that one should have the Ram Mandir in one’s heart.