Even as NCP chief Sharad Pawar openly questioned the ‘Bhoomi pujan’ in relation to the Ram temple at Ayodhya, there are news reports that Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra CM will go to Ayodhya to attend it
Bengaluru: Even as NCP chief Sharad Pawar openly questioned the ‘Bhoomi pujan’ in relation to the Ram temple at Ayodhya, there are news reports that Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra CM will go to Ayodhya to attend it.
NCP leader Majeed Memon said, "CM Maharashtra is at liberty to go to Ayodhya as an individual following his faith. We cannot prevent anyone following his faith. As an individual, he is free to follow his faith."
But Shiva Sena has refused to react to Sharad Pawar’s statement.
"Shiv Sena is a leading light of the Ram Mandir movement. (Sena president) Uddhav Thackeray had visited Ayodhya before becoming chief minister and even after taking charge," Arvind Sawant, the Shiv Sena MP from Mumbai South, told PTI.
Earlier, Pawar had said thus on building Ram temple during the ongoing pandemic: "We are all thinking of how to fight the battle against Coronavirus but some people think that coronavirus will be mitigated by building a temple. But our priority is to see how to improve the economy which has been affected due to lockdown."
Quite naturally, such acerbic reactions from a senior leader did no go down to well with senior leaders of the BJP.
Taking exception to it, Subramanian Swamy, BJP Rajya Sabha MP said: “It's ridiculous. Another channel's anchor had said that building a hospital is better than building a Ram Mandir and yes, I told him, we need more mental hospitals for people who speak like that. In the same way, you cannot compare two alternatives which are not equal in its application. In the old age when we used to build steel plants, people used to say building them is not as good as feeding the people of India. There are so many people below the poverty lines. These are ridiculous alternatives, we can have both."
"We can fight COVID-19 as well as inaugurate Ram Temple both. I don't understand Mr Pawar is saying. Has he started losing his mental faculties or what in the company of the Congress? How can he possibly in this country like this compare fighting COVID-19 with the project of building a Ram Temple after all the struggle of 500 years. I think he should apologise to the people of India.”
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