Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed on Tuesday that the Congress boycotted the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, making it a political event.
Sarma, who leads the state’s BJP-led government, claims that everyone else sees the programme as a ‘triumph of Indian civilisation’.
His statement came hours after Rahul Gandhi stated in Nagaland that it is difficult for his party’s leaders to attend the January 22 ceremony because the BJP and RSS have turned it into a “political event” centred on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will attend the programme.
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“If Rahul Gandhi would have gone there, it would not have got any political flavour. We allow you to attend it so that it remains an apolitical function. But you and your close associates have boycotted it, thereby making it a political function which it was not,” Sarma told a press conference.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and its other top leaders ‘respectfully declined’ invitation to attend the consecration ceremony at Ayodhya, with the party accusing the BJP of making it into a ‘political project’ for electoral gains and asserting that religion is a ‘personal matter’.
“Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are politicising anti-Hindu sentiments. Only the Congress party is politicising an event that is otherwise regarded as a triumph of Indian civilization,” Sarma claimed.
The BJP and the RSS are adding an “election flavour” to the programme, making it difficult for the Congress to attend, Rahul Gandhi said earlier in the day at Chiephobozou in Nagaland during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
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“Everyone will go, have darshan of Ram Lalla and return. I don’t think anybody will give any political speech or anti-Congress speech. For other people, it is a triumph of Indian civilisation,” Sarma added.
