Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav was welcome to visit Ayodhya but should first apologise to Lord Ram’s devotees. The remark came after the SP announced that Akhilesh Yadav would visit the Ram Temple on December 12, his first visit to the temple that was built around two years ago after decades of litigation over the land where the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
“The Lord is very kind. He will forgive everyone. The Lord does not take long to end the arrogance of power,” Adityanath added, speaking in Hindi.
“Those who bloodied Ayodhya are also remembering Ayodhya,” Adityanath said at the 10th edition of the Deepotsav, the lighting of thousands of earthen lamps, in Ayodhya. “Let them come to Ayodhya, but they should seek forgiveness from Ram bhakts (devotees),” Adityanath said, not naming Akhilesh, who was chief minister before Adityanath succeeded him in 2017 as the BJP took power. Pointing towards the audience, the chief minister added, “Given the history you, Ram devotees, have created, no one will now dare to open fire on the devotees in Ayodhya.”
A Samajwadi Party government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav’s father, was in power in the state. Akhilesh has not yet visited the temple so far, giving various reasons, including that he would visit only after the Kedareshwar Dham temple in SP’s home turf of Etawah was completed. That temple is now reportedly almost finished.
The then Chandra Shekhar government at the Centre put the toll at 15. Mulayam Singh gave differing figures over the years, while the BJP, the VHP and other Hindutva organisations have claimed more than 50 deaths. Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly accused the BJP of fanning communalism, though he said the Ayodhya dispute as such stood settled after the Supreme Court awarded the land to the Hindu side in its 2019 verdict. SP leader Pawan Pandey said Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav and his wife, Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav, would offer prayers at the Ram Temple and Hanumangarhi on December 12. Pandey has again been named the party’s candidate from the Ayodhya seat for the Assembly elections due by February 2027. Akhilesh Yadav was in Ayodhya on October 8 to attend a Bhagwat Katha organised by Pandey but did not visit the temple.
The “bloodying” that Adityanath referred to took place in 1990, when police opened fire on ‘kar sevaks’ (volunteers) trying to reach the Babri Masjid at the height of a movement to build the Ram Temple in its place. UP BJP chief Pankaj Chaudhary said Akhilesh Yadav “goes to offer prayers when he sees an opportunity” and should “refrain from constantly insulting Sanatan Dharma”. Minister Danish Azad Ansari said the SP was raising Ayodhya “with an agenda of misleading the public as elections are near”.
