Sangh Parivar is all set to ignite Ayodhya temple fervour in lead-up to LS elections
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be at Ayodhya's centre stage on January 22 when he carries out the high-profile consecration ceremony of the much-awaited Ram temple, but all wings of the 'Sangh Parivar' have an even bigger task laid out for them both before and after the 'D' Day.
Led by functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and other smaller frontal Hindu organizations will soon swarm different corners of Uttar Pradesh and also fan out in several other North Indian states to skillfully connect common people with the Ram temple at Lord Ram's birthplace, Ayodhya.
Modi has already carried out a huge pre-event in Ayodhya on December 30 when he inaugurated the international airport in Ayodhya together with a recently reconstructed railway station from where he flagged off a couple of important Vande Bharat and Amrit Bharat trains.
The day clearly sounded the bugle of the launch of Modi's election campaign. It was not just a token use of Ayodhya as his poll plank, but the prime minister also did not make any bones about taking every political mileage out of the temple which is in its final stages.
VHP has come up with a novel idea to carry a printed invite with a picture of the idol of Lord Ram, together with a fistful of rice sprinkled with turmeric in the traditional Hindu manner, to every door across the vast rural expanse of the country's most populous state.
These teams will also urge people to light earthen lamps (diyas) in their respective homes on January 22 when the mega event of temple inauguration is being carried out in Ayodhya in the presence of an august gathering of VVIPs drawn from different walks of life. Every household will be provided with a set of diyas to carry out the ritual.
In an obvious bid to bring different Hindu castes under a common fold, the RSS leadership has explicitly instructed the visiting teams to ensure that no home in any village is missed. "Bhagwan Ram is for everyone, and every community must know that none is being discriminated," observed RSS Prant Pracharak (Avadh region) Ashok Dubey.
Evidently, that is just another subtle way of making an outreach into socially downtrodden communities that were not on the BJP's agenda for decades. And this OBC outreach will be demonstrated by getting representatives of at least 132 different castes on the special guest list for the January 22 show.
Surely, the BJP hopes to counter the opposition's bid to wean away a chunk of the deprived OBCs, for whom BJP's political adversaries have been demanding a special caste-based census. The idea is to establish how OBCs were not able to get their rightful due under the "pro-upper caste" BJP regimes.
However, they are being advised to keep themselves confined to their homes on January 22 when they are being told to light diyas in their respective homes. The message is very plain and clear – that January 22 is the day for the very special invitees, which include celebrities from different walks of life, as well as select foreign dignitaries in Ayodhya.
While the 'Sangh Parivar' will be moving from village to village, the Yogi Adityanath government has already issued directives to all district magistrates to organize a special Ramayan 'path' rendition of Goswami Tulsidas' 'Ram Charit Manas' as well as Maharishi Valmiki's Ramayan, that has so far rarely found space in traditional Hindu rituals.
As if to target Dalits who form the bulk of devotees at all Valmiki temples, the UP government's circular explicitly spells out each and every detail of how various performances have to be carried out at different temples a week before the January 22 event.
In an unprecedented move, the UP government circular issued by the state Chief Secretary Durga Shankar Misra also states that all expenses for the week-long programs and performances in the run-up to the temple inauguration will be borne by the state. A senior-level government officer has been nominated as a Nodal Officer to coordinate and supervise the series of events.
Special teams from not only a dozen Indian states but also half a dozen foreign countries will be converging at Ayodhya to put up their respective forms of Ramlila. Besides UP's own team, artists from the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh are expected to reach Ayodhya next week.
Cultural troupes from Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Nepal are also expected to arrive in Ayodhya well before the key event on January 22 to put up their performance of Ramlila, as practised in their respective nations.
While all these series of cultural events will conclude with the consecration ceremony on January 22, special 'bhandaras' offering free food to all visitors for at least two months in the new completely transformed ancient temple town of Ayodhya.
All this is being done blatantly with an eye on the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha election when Modi is hoping to milk Ayodhya in the same manner as Pulwama (in 2019) so that he could fulfil his dream of doing a hat-trick as prime minister for the third time.