Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): In the midst of the uproar over the three-day ‘Ramkatha’ delivered by Kumar Vishwas, the letter from the director of Maharaja Vikramaditya Shodhpeeth has also come under the scanner.
Shodhpeeth conducted Kumar Vishwas’ Ramkatha at Kalidas Sanskrit Academy premises under 33-day Vikram Utsav-2023. Ramkatha, which cost around Rs 50 lakh, created a ruckus when Vishwas commented on the RSS. After the day-long ruckus on Wednesday, the discussion about the cancellation of Kumar Vishwas’ Ramkatha went on the social media platform and a letter issued in the name of Shriram Tiwari, director of Shodhpeeth, also went viral.
This letter addressed to Kumar Vishwas mentions cancelling the Ram Katha to be held on February 22 and 23 in view of the fury arising out of unwanted, indecent and unfortunate comments during the Katha. The serial number of this letter was 389, by evening, Ram Tiwari cited the letter as being forged and issued letter number 389 on the letterhead of Shodhpeeth informing the continuance of Kumar Vishwas’ Ramkatha.
The question is if the letter addressed to Kumar Vishwas was forged, how did it have serial number 389, because the serial number of the letter declaring this letter to be fake is also 389. Observers say, the serial number 389 of the letter giving information about the fake letter by the director cannot be a coincidence, because only the office-bearers know about the letter issued by the Shodhpeeth. In such a situation, if someone was issuing a fake letter, he should be punished. How was it known that the next letter will be issued from number 389? More interestingly, no formal complaint was lodged in the police station in this regard on behalf of the Shodhpeeth.
If sources are to be believed, after the day-long ruckus on Wednesday, Shodhpeeth had prepared a letter to cancel the programme, but pressure was exerted from higher-ups in BJP to continue the programme.
It is being said that in the election year, BJP did not want to take risks by cancelling Kumar Vishwas’ Ramkatha. BJP was apprehensive about creating a negative narrative set, there were two reasons for this. Firstly, BJP is the patriarch of Hindutva and in such a situation, opposition parties would attack the cancellation of Ramkatha and call it an insult to Hindutva. Secondly, they would promote it as a restriction on freedom of expression, sources said.
