PM Modi 'fulfilled' dream of Hindus: Ayodhya MP on Ram temple ceremony

As the man on ground zero, BJP MP Lallu Singh from Ayodhya has been a part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement long before it caught popular imagination in 1990s and believes that Ram temple's construction will change the national politics in the same big way the agitation for it once did.

Singh (65) names many, from VHP's late patriarch Ashok Singhal to veteran BJP leader L K Advani and several sants, when asked of people who played a key role in the movement's success while asserting that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who finally "fulfilled the dream that the Hindu samaj nursed for long".

Speaking to PTI, the second-term Lok Sabha member said he was confident that the temple would be finally built at the disputed site in Ayodhya, the ground zero of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, since Modi came to power for the first time in 2014.

"So many people have worked so much. Many of them sacrificed their lives. But the dream which has been fulfilled now is due to Modi. It is he who realised the society's dream,” said Singh, who had been a member of the Uttar Pradesh assembly four times.

Since 2014, Singh said, he had been working to push infrastructure and other developments in and around Ayodhya as the city had to be ready to welcome lakhs and millions of pilgrims because he was sure in his heart and mind that the temple will be built sooner than later. “Our government also worked a lot in this regard. That day has come now,” he said.

Modi is scheduled to lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5. The Supreme Court had in November 2019 settled the decades-long dispute over the site in favour of building the temple and awarded land to Muslim groups to build a mosque at a different place in Ayodhya.

Singh, however, said he would not talk about political and religious disputes which shadowed the movement at a time when Ram is in everyone's mind.

These disputes lingered due to a handful of wicked people, and an overwhelming number of countrymen wanted the temple to be built, he said.

"A grand Ram temple is now going to be built, and this will change the direction of politics. This will unite people and boost cultural nationalism,” he said.

Riding on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the BJP went from strength to strength in 1990s and came to power at the Centre under Atal Bihari Vajpayee before Modi led it to win in a majority of seats in Lok Sabha in 2014 and then a bigger mandate in 2019.

Singh has also been working to distribute sweets to people living within Ayodhya's "cultural boundaries", which covers a periphery of 275 km across five districts, when the foundation stone is laid.

Ayodhya, he said, will become the biggest draw in the country for pilgrims in the years to come after the temple is built. 

Image: ANI