New Delhi: The Congress reiterated Friday that Ram Lalla’s consecration ceremony at the Ayodhya temple on 22 January was not a religious but a political affair, adding the country’s Shankaracharyas too had “reservations” over pran pratishtan being done in an incomplete temple.
At a press conference Friday, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the Shankaracharyas had said a pran pratishthan cannot be done in an incomplete temple.
The country’s four Shankaracharyas are spiritual leaders in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism, each heading one of the four principal monasteries established by the eighth-century religious scholar Adi Shankara. They are the heads of four shrines situated in Uttarakhand’s Joshimath, Gujarat’s Dwarka, Odisha’s Puri and Karnataka’s Sringeri.
The Shankaracharya of Uttarakhand’s Jyotir Mutt, Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, announced early this week that none of the four Shankaracharyas would attend the pran pratishthan ceremony because doing it in an incomplete temple was “against the shastras”.
Earlier the Shankaracharya of Puri’s Govardhan Mutt, Nischalananda Saraswati too had distanced himself from the Ayodhya event.
Khera, the chairman of the AICC Media and Publicity Department, Friday also chastised the Bharatiya Janata Party’s elaborate invitation exercise for the Ayodhya ceremony this month. “Does someone go to God’s temple by invitation? If there is no invitation, then do we not go? And a political party will decide who will go and who will not go? No one can be stopped from going to a temple. Humans cannot invite anyone to a temple. Humans cannot stop anyone from going to temples,” he said.
Khera also said even bhakts (devotees) would not accept political interference in such an event. “We want to know, who are you to decide who can come and who can’t. When our spiritual leaders want to do pran pratishtha on Ram Navami, then who are you to go and do it in an incomplete temple?” Khera further said.
Khera’s remarks came two days after the Congress announced that top party leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who were invited to the ceremony, would not attend.
They had said the temple was a “political project of the RSS and the BJP”. The party accused the BJP and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of bringing forward the inauguration date of the incomplete temple for electoral gain.
‘Can’t interfere with each other’s faith’
Another party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said Friday that the Shankaracharyas too had said that religious events, and religious proceedings should be left to religious people.
“In the whole event and its preparations, there seems to be no dharm, neeti or astha. Only politics is visible here,” Khera told reporters at the party headquarters Friday.
He added that 22 January was not a chunav (election) date, but one that has been chosen for chunav – that is, the upcoming general elections in May.
Talking about the invitation to Congress leaders, Khera clarified that was a “personal invitation” and that several other Congress leaders, who were invited, were going for it. “Nobody can interfere with each other’s faith… They are going. They can go,” he said.
Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh is one of the leaders who has openly thanked the RSS and the Vishva Hindu Parishad for the invitation. Srinate also pointed out that a delegation of Uttar Pradesh Congress was set to visit the temple on 15 January, on the day of Makar Sankranti, for darshan.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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