Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal received a letter a few days ago advising him to block his dates as a formal invitation for the ceremony, along with details, will follow. The Pran Pratishtha of Ram Lalla at the Ayodhya temple is in a few weeks, according to party sources. However, according to party sources, no official invitation has been sent out since. Concurrently, the Congress declined an invitation to Lord Ram Lalla’s “Pran Pratistha” ceremony, which is set for later this month in Ayodhya, accusing the Ram Temple inauguration of being an event organized by the BJP and RSS earlier in the day.
Senior Congress leaders — Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — ‘declined’ the invitation for the grand event in Ayodhya, the party’s general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a statement.
“Last month, the Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi and the Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury received an invitation to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya to be held on January 22nd, 2024,” he said in the statement.
“Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in our country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS and 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. While abiding by the 2019 Supreme Court judgment and honouring the sentiments of millions who revere Lord Ram, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have respectfully declined the invitation to what is clearly an RSS and BJP event,” it added.