'Nehru didn't visit...': BJP accuses Congress of 'appeasement' over Ram Temple move

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday launched a concerted attack at the Congress for refusing to attend the January 22 Ram Temple event in Ayodhya, saying the party turned down the invitation for “the sake of appeasement”. It also said "Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress" is against the Hindu religion.

"For the sake of appeasement, the Congress party is continuously opposing Hindu beliefs. Whenever the issue of Ram Temple has been raised in the last 2-4 decades, they have always opposed it. They even said Lord Ram was a fictional figure and questioned the Ram Setu. The present Congress party has reached the heights of appeasement. I am not surprised by their decision," said Union minister Pralhad Joshi.

Karnataka BJP leader CT Ravi claimed Nehru, the first prime minister of India and a late Congress icon, had refused to visit the ancient Somnath Temple in Gujarat.

"Congress has always been against Hindutva... Somnath Temple was reconstructed by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Babu Rajendra Prasad, and KM Munshi. Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister during that time. He didn't visit Somnath. So how can the present leadership of the Congress go to Ayodhya," he said.

BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi said the present Congress is Nehru's party.

"This is Nehru's Congress, this is not Gandhi's Congress. Mahatma Gandhi used to sing 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' and today Congress is not attending the 'pran pratishtha' ceremony. This shows Congress is against the Hindu religion and Hindutva," he claimed.

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Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were invited by the temple committee for the consecration ceremony of the temple in Ayodhya. However, they refused to attend the grand event on Wednesday, saying the BJP and the RSS are trying to score electoral gains from the ceremony.

"Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain," the party said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Karnataka CM and Congress leader Siddaramaiah said the Congress isn't against Lord Ram.

"We all follow Lord Ram and we visit Ram Temples in our villages. They have built Ram Temple and we have no issue with it. But they are making politics out of it and we are opposing politics," he said.

Earlier this month, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had declined the invitation to the event saying the BJP was mixing politics with religion.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the Ram Temple would be built on the disputed site. It had also ordered the authorities to provide a separate parcel of land to the Muslim side for the construction of a mosque.

With inputs from PTI, ANI