It was a vote for Ram temple, claims VHP

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JUNE 20. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad today asserted that the Lok Sabha had, in fact, ``already approved'' the building of a Ram temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya.

Swami Chinmayanand, BJP MP and VHP leader, said the discussion and vote in the Lok Sabha during the last winter session of Parliament following the Prime Minister's statements that the Ram temple issue was one of ``national sentiment'' was in fact a ``positive vote by Parliament for the Ram temple.''

All that was needed now was to hand over the land to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nirman Samiti, generate enthusiasm among the people, and launch the ``final phase of the Ram temple movement.''

These statements were made here today at the end of a two-day meeting of the Nirman Samiti, where decisions taken by the `dharam sansad' at the Kumbh mela earlier this year were approved. A VHP meeting in Bhopal on June 25 and 26 will chalk out the ground plan for implementing the decisions.

`Sants' and `sadhus' are to tour the country to create an atmosphere congenial to the project - a `jap yagya' with thousands of people chanting `Jai Ram' is to be organised from November 26, and from January 21 to 27 next year, `sants' will march from Ayodhya to Parliament to assert their demand. Anytime ``after March 12'', construction could begin.

However, Mr. Ashok Singhal, working president of the VHP, rejected the suggestion that the proposed agitation was being timed for the Uttar Pradesh elections which are also scheduled in March. ``Elections come and go, we have our own programme,'' he said.

Significantly, the president of the Samiti, Ram Chandra Param Hans, who belongs to one of the religious `akharas' in Ayodhya, did not attend the meeting. Also missing was another prominent figure, Mahant Nritya Gopaldas. Although the VHP tried to explain their absence on grounds of illness, it is known that the `akharas' are extremely unhappy with the VHP. Most of them had boycotted the VHP-led `dharam sansad' at the Kumbh mela, and more recently, the `akharas' had jointly adopted a resolution to say they would have nothing to do with any VHP programme related to the Ram temple or to keeping the Ganges pure.

Mr. Singhal had unsuccessfully tried to gather the saffron force of `sadhus' together on the Tehri Dam issue claiming that the ``special purificatory'' of the Ganges water would be affected by the dam as the Bhagirathi river water would be diverted to the artificial reservoir. But that issue has flopped.

Swami Chinmayanand today said that MPs should appeal to the Government to ask it to appeal to the courts to give an early verdict on the Ayodhya-related cases. At the same time, he said that irrespective of what the courts do, the VHP would go ahead with its Ram temple plans. He insisted that the Lok Sabha had already ``approved'' of these through the vote in Parliament during the last winter session.

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