The donations management system of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has been under the scanner ever since allegations of donation theft surfaced in June 2026. Amidst the criticism, speculation, and politics surrounding the alleged ‘Chanda Chori’, an external audit has found that Rs 3,300 crore of the donations made by devotees to the Ram Mandir are fully accounted for.
Following the allegations of embezzlement of Ram Mandir donations by counting staff, independent third-party auditors, M/S V Sankar Aiyer & Co., audited and confirmed that the entire Rs 3,300 crore collected via public contributions is accounted for and these funds have not been embezzled or stolen.
The audited Rs 3,300 crore donations include Rs 1,800 crore for temple construction and Rs 400 crore for land acquisition. There were zero cash transactions relating to these funds and required transfers were conducted under strict financial and banking protocols.
Reports say contrary to allegations peddled by the Opposition and a section of media regarding Ram Mandir land acquisition, 100% of payments for contiguous temple land were completed through direct bank-to-bank transfers from authorised accounts. The land acquisition procedure did not involve any cash transactions. Sources suggest that the higher acquisition costs reflected prevailing post-verdict market rates and the settlement of commercial structures.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has confirmed that the Rs 3,300 crore donations collected for the construction of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir were deposited in a separate account in the State Bank of India (SBI).
From Rs 200 crore, Rs 2000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore, the Opposition kept conveniently raising the Ram Mandir donation theft amount as they sharpened attacks on the Yogi government
The external audit confirming that there was no large-scale theft of donations or a massive ‘scam’ is nothing short of a blow to Opposition parties using the embezzlement of funds by some counting staff members to attack the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.
The allegations of ‘chadhava chori’ or the ‘chadhava scam’ at the Ayodhya Ram Mandir were first highlighted by local media. The matter gained political traction on 7th June 2026 after Samajwadi Party supremo and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav cited media reports of crores in unaccounted donations and called for judicial intervention. Alarming claims emerged about alleged discrepancies in donation collections, sudden wealth accumulation by several low-paid counting staff, and possible missing funds.
In no time, Samajwadi Party and other Opposition parties floated a Rs 200 crore figure to magnify the donation theft issue. A few days later, claims were floated that the donation scam is worth Rs 2,000.
In July this year, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav claimed that a huge scam pertaining to donations and valuables worth around Rs 20,000 crore has taken place in the Ram Mandir project. Yadav had also claimed that funds and precious items donated by devotees to the temple went unaccounted for. The Samajwadi Party leader further alleged that some “big names” were involved in the alleged irregularities.
It is a Rs 20,000 crore scam with big names involved in it. People donated crores of Rupees, gold and diamonds, but today no one knows what happened,” Yadav said on 1st July.
However, the recently conducted independent audit confirms that not Rs 20,000 crore but the donations collected for Ram Mandir construction were Rs 3,300, and this figure stands fully accounted for.
Even the outrageous Ram Mandir donation theft that has actually occurred is not as big as the Opposition has claimed. The theft occurred only in cash sorting and was carried out by counting staff hired from an external agency; the Opposition’s politics targeted temple priests, the BJP government, Hindus, and their intellect for placing trust in the temple Trust.
A preliminary report submitted before the court by the Uttar Pradesh Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed at the request of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust indicated systemic failures and the role of the counting staff in donation theft.
The report revealed that approximately 70 suspicious incidents of alleged pilferage were captured on CCTV between around 27th April and 5th June 2026.
Some of the counting staff members were also seen repeatedly concealing wads of cash in pockets, socks, underclothing, and even in the attached bathroom.
The SIT report hinted at serious lapses in the security protocol. It found absence of proper frisking at entry and exit of the counting area, substandard control over personal belongings, combined counting of cash from multiple donation boxes (Daan Patra, Hundi), exploitation of CCTV blind spots, and inadequate monitoring.
The CCTV video footage showed that some of the key employees counting the money were secretly hiding the bundles of notes and loose notes inside their clothes, pockets and shoes, while some other employees were helping them in this work by providing cover.
Six external employees working for Sainik Security Services (SSS) were identified through CCTV footage and were arrested by the police.
The SIT report emphasised that the continuous embezzlement of donated cash was not a mere oversight, but rather the result of deliberate and gross negligence of security regulations.
The report also mentions that the theft of donations took place under the watch of Subhash Srivastava, the in-charge of the counting room.
The SIT probe has found six employees directly involved in this theft, which include Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey and Ramshankar Mishra.
These individuals were appointed by the SBI through a private agency; however, their appointments were made on the recommendations of some temple Trust officials.
In mid-July, around 30 more employees involved in counting cash offerings came under the scanner. The probe in the donation theft case remains on.
Ever since the alleged donation theft was reported, the Opposition parties have not only attacked the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh, but also resorted to blatant Hinduphobia.
In late July, anti-BJP MP Pappu Yadav cosplayed a greedy priest and staged a nukkad Natak-style skit in the Parliament premises, enacting the Ayodhya Ram Mandir donation theft. Pappu Yadav dressed up as a Hindu priest in saffron robes, Rudraksh mala, Tripund, and saffron headgear, collected ‘donations’ from Congress MPs Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and ran away. Gandhi and other opposition leaders then symbolically mob lynched him.
Awadhesh Prasad, the Samajwadi Party MP from Faizabad, the constituency that includes Ayodhya, was also a part of this blatant mockery of Hindu priests. The whole idea of the skit was to convey it to the public that it is the BJP-backed Hindu priests of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir who stole the temple donations. Such blatant Hinduphobic lies were peddled even as the SIT report nor any subsequent investigation findings indicated any role of temple priests.
While the Ram Mandir donations became a subject of politics and Hinduphobia, it now emerges that the core donation of Rs 3,300 crore remains safe and fully accounted for. In fact, the ongoing probe into the donation theft indicates the ‘Chanda Chori’ was a petty but preventable theft. It was not a scam as massive as Rs 20,000 crore.
Apparently, the public separated the facts from the Opposition’s politically beneficial fiction, as evident from there being no dip in donations to the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, with Hundi collections remaining steady with a Rs 5 crore monthly average for the first quarter of FY 2026-27.
