Mumbai: The ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya early next month and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar’s plain-speak on the issue has caught the Shiv Sena in a cleft.
On Sunday, Pawar questioned the Narendra Modi-led government as to whether constructing a temple would control the coronavirus pandemic and sought that efforts be focused on dealing with the economic apocalypse caused by the lockdown.
Shiv Sena sources admit that the BJP may use the differences of opinion on this emotive issue to highlight the ideological inconsistencies within the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi.
However, the Shiv Sena, which used the Ram Temple agitation to signify its shift to rabid Hindutva politics since the late 1980s, claims that they do not need a formal invite to visit the temple town. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut stressed that it was the Sena which had paved the way for the construction of the Ram Temple, which is a matter of faith and not a political issue for it.
Legislator Pratap Sarnaik has written to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas seeking that Chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray be invited as a chief guest for the ceremony. Uddhav has visited Ayodhya thrice in the recent past.
“Practically speaking, Pawar is right. Considering the spread of the pandemic, the focus must be on combating coronavirus. The Centre and the BJP may be using the Ram Temple as a ploy to divert attention from the larger economic crisis,” said a senior Shiv Sena leader.
The leader pointed to how in the initial days of the Ram Temple movement, late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray had called for a hospital to be built at the disputed site. However, as the protests picked pace, the Shiv Sena, rather than the BJP and the Sangh Parivar outfits, took charge of the movement in Maharashtra. In 1992, when a mob of frenzied kar sevaks felled the Babri Masjid, exacerbating the religious cleavages in the country and leading to communal conflagrations, it was the Sena supremo who claimed he was proud of his boys if they had demolished the structure.
“The BJP is using the Ram Mandir issue to drive a wedge between the Shiv Sena and the Congress-NCP. However, this issue concerns the Centre, and is not part of the common minimum program (CMP) on basis of which the Maha Vikas Aghadi has come into existence,” the leader explained.
