Hindu Sena chief files plea to prevent PM Modi from offering chadar to Ajmer Sharif

A petition filed in an Ajmer court sought a temporary order to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from sending a chadar to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, with petitioner Vishnu Gupta, the Hindu Sena chief, arguing that the offering would grant political legitimacy to his lawsuit claiming the structure is a Shiva temple.

Vishnu Gupta is part of an ongoing lawsuit contending that the shrine of the 13th-century Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti was constructed over a demolished Shiva temple. The suit seeks to have the shrine declared as the Bhagwan Shri Sankatmochan Mahadev Virajman temple.

It also seeks the removal of the Dargah committee and requests a survey of the site by the Archaeological Survey of India, citing structural designs resembling Hindu architecture as evidence.

Prime Minister Modi has been sending a chadar to the dargah annually since 2014, in observance of the Urs ceremony that commemorates the death anniversary of the Sufi mystic. This year, the offering was presented to Union Minister for Minority and Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who travelled to Jaipur with the ceremonial item.

The case raises broader issues regarding ongoing disputes over religious sites across the country. In December, the Supreme Court imposed a stay on trial courts from passing orders, including survey directives, in lawsuits concerning the religious character of places of worship. It further barred the filing of new suits on such matters while it examined the constitutional validity of the 1991 Places of Worship Special Provisions Act.

The 1991 Act preserves the religious status of places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947, and prohibits changes to their character. The court's intervention comes amid at least 18 active lawsuits concerning 10 mosques and shrines, including the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Eidgah mosque in Mathura.