'It is a matter of faith', says Congress Leader while demanding construction of Ram Mandir

Leaders of BJP and Shiv Sena have been aggressively pitching for Ram Mandir since many years. But all this time, Congress has always kept itself away from the Mandir controversy.

None of the Congress leaders have openly supported the demand of construction of Ram Mandir. But as the chorus for a mandir has been growing, in the midst of it, one Congress leader from Maharashtra has openly come out and publicly demanded for the construction of the mandir.     

Former minister of Maharashtra and biggest North Indian face in Mumbai, Kripashankar Singh, while addressing people in a Ram Leela programme, said,

"There is a question in the minds of all the devotees of Rama that when will their deity Rama will get his temple at his birthplace? There are many Ram temple in our country, my wife has also built a Ram temple at our house but when will Ram Mandir will be built in Ayodhya? I firmly believe that Ram mandir nirman trust will build this temple and other political parties should support them and no one should see this from the prism of politics".  

When Republic TV spoke to Kripashankar Singh, he said “It is a matter of asthaa(faith), we are religious people but not the fanatic. Ram mandir should be built as soon as possible”.

Kripashankar Singh’s statement has created a flutter in the Congress. According to the sources, his statement haven't gone down well with few leaders of the party. Some minority leaders have expressed displeasure over his statement. 

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After the humiliating defeat in 2014, Congress did a survey and found that pro-Muslim image of the party had caused an immense damage to the party. Since then, it can be seen trying to adopt a soft approach towards Hindutva.

Visuals of Congress president Rahul Gandhi on mandir yatra during his election campaign have been very common now. Despite all this, Congress president has not made his stand clear on Ram Mandir. Neither he, or his party has a clear stand on this matter.

As the Lok Sabha elections are coming closer, saints have started mounting pressure on the BJP and the Congress to support Ram temple. In fact, RSS gave the ultimatum to the BJP and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray followed it up by saying 'either BJP should build the temple or they will do it'. Overall, it is not going to be easy for Congress to keep itself away from Ram temple issue.

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