The Sangh Parivar is pulling out all stops to ensure that the fervour around the Ram Temple inauguration does not die after the Ram Lalla consecration ceremony scheduled for January 22. With Ram Temple being the cornerstone of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s political rise, efforts are underway to keep the issue alive in the people’s minds as Lok Sabha elections approach.
The BJP and the Sangh Parivar have drawn out elaborate plans to esnure that the buzz around the Ram Temple does not die down. As many as 1 lakh pilgrims will be ferried from 28 states and eight union territories through 44 special trains to Ayodhya between January 27 and February 22.
The Sangh will organise a guided tour of the Ayodhya Ram Temple for people across the country as part of this exercise. Those visiting will include karsevaks who were part of the iconic Rath Yatra, those who organised functions in support of the Ram Temple movement and those who made a financial contribution towards the Ram Mandir Nidhi.
“VHP owes this responsibility to the people and their families who have sacrificed or made any contribution to the building of the Temple,” VHP president Alok Kumar told The Indian Express. VHP workers have been dispatched to various parts of the country to identify these invitees and arrange their travels to Ayodhya.
For this purpose, the VHP has divided the country into 45 zones with each zone comprising 1,500 to 2,000 pilgrims. Once these pilgrims arrive in Ayodhya, everything from their lodging, food and darshan will be taken care of by the VHP. For pilgrims travelling from non-Hindi-speaking states, activists have been roped in from such states to ensure the pilgrims face no difficulties in navigating through Ayodhya.
Special arrangements would be made for the pilgrims in a tent city in Ayodhya for their two-day stay. The first batch is expected to arrive from Uttarakhand, followed by Delhi and Jharkhand apart from other states.
On its part, the Bharatiya Janata Party has planned a similar exercise to arrange for the travel of 10,000 devotees from each Lok Sabha constituency in the country after January 25. The party is currently working on the modalities for the exercise which is slated to continue till March-end, just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections expected to be held in April-May.