Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has decided to skip the ‘pran pratishtha‘ (consecration) ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22.

In a letter to the General Secretary of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, Champat Rai, Sharad Pawar said he will take time out after the pran pratishtha ceremony and visit Ayodhya for “darshan”.

Lord Ram, he said, is a symbol of faith and devotion for crores of people across the world. “There is immense excitement among Ram devotees for the event in Ayodhya and they are reaching there in large numbers. The joy of this historic event will reach me through them. After the January 22 event, it will be easier to get darshan,” Pawar said in a statement in Hindi.

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The NCP chief noted that he would pray to Ram Lalla during his upcoming visit to Ayodhya. “By then, the construction of Ram Mandir will also be complete,” he said.

Pawar is yet another opposition leader to decline the Ram Temple invite. Earlier, Congress top brass, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi, decided to skip the inauguration ceremony, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of making it a “political project”.

The Congress statement said, “Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in our country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain.”

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Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi defended his party’s decision to decline the Ram Mandir invite, alleging the Ram Mandir consecration event has been made into a “Narendra Modi and RSS-BJP function” with an “election flavour”.

Other leaders who have declined the invitation include Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) Mamata Banerjee, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP).