In an interview with The Indian Express, the BJP leader added, “India is a deeply religious country, and respect for all faiths is integral to Indian ethos. Rig Veda says ‘Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti’, meaning truth is one but interpreted differently. You have your perceptions, you respect my path, and I will respect yours. The ultimate truth is permanent, eternal, and omnipresent. That is the real core”.
He said India would never become a theocratic nation.
Ayodhya Ram Mandir: A look at the preparations for the consecration ceremony
Several videos and footage have emerged from BJP-ruled states where people are seen celebrating the consecration of Ram Temple with furore.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself has gone on an 11-day fast and is visiting temples across the country before the 22 January ceremony.
Ayodhya Ram Mandir: Date, aarti timings, darshan, and other details here
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leaders, karyakartas and supporters have explicitly expressed their joy for the grand ceremony. However, the opposition has targeted the Central government saying that the line between the State and religion has blurred, and accused BJP of playing politics in the name of Lord Ram in a bid to win the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Pran Pratishtha: Ram Mandir gets world’s most expensive Ramayana
However, Prasad told the English Daily that ‘Felicitating the grand ceremony, arranging for that does not mean blurring the lines. So many people are coming and the machinery is just facilitating them. Should religious places in India be filled with dirt? Why cannot our religious places become extraordinary, like the Vatican? Ayodhya is sacred to the Hindus. The priests are there, (but) after all Modi, our Prime Minister, is a Ram bhakt”.
Opposing the views of India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Prasad said that Modi, ” is going there as a real worshipper of Lord Ram, and he is following the required discipline for it”.
Notably, Prasad was a lawyer in the Patna High Court when (L K) Advaniji was arrested during Rath Yatra in Bihar. Advani’s 90s Rath Yatra provided a movement to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in Indian political history.
Ram Mandir event: Gujarat traders to give ‘one-day salary’ as bonus to employees
Prasad told The Indian Express that Advani never wanted bail but permission to go to New Delhi to vote for the no-confidence motion against the V P Singh government.
“Lalu Prasad (the then Bihar CM) became a champion by arresting him, Mulayam Singh Yadav became the champion of secular politics by firing upon kar sevaks…And we started rising in the political landscape,” he said.
Prasad said the Ram Temple is being erected with a Supreme Court order.
Ram Mandir ceremony: First look of Ram Lalla’s idol revealed | In Pictures
“There is ample evidence on record that, in spite of the erection of the so-called disputed structure, the faith of the Hindus never wavered on the place of birth of Lord Ram. They would go and bow their heads in front of it, for which there are accounts of travellers and Christian missionaries. Archeological Survey of India (ASI) findings also clearly established that on the ruins of a very old temple of the 8th-9th Century, the Babri mosque was erected. That many of the artefacts of the temple had been used in it,” Prasad added.
Ayodhya Ram Mandir: These states declared a holiday or half day on January 22
The Ram Temple consecration ceremony is being held after the first phase of the temple’s construction, made possible by a historic Supreme Court judgment in 2019 on the temple-mosque dispute. The Hindu litigants argued that the Babri Mosque was constructed at the site of a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram.
In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was demolished by ‘kar sevaks’.
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Published: 20 Jan 2024, 09:31 AM IST