Sharad Pawar to skip Ayodhya Ram temple consecration ceremony, says ‘will visit once construction is over’

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday declined the invitation to attend the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple at Ayodhya on January 22, saying that he would visit the temple once the construction was complete.

“The devotees of Lord Ram are enthusiastic and eager to witness the ceremony at Ayodhya. The joy of this ceremony will reach me through them. After the ceremony on January 22, it will be easier to take the darshan of Ram Lalla. I have a scheduled visit to Ayodhya and at that time, I can pay my respects to Lord Ram with much devotion. By then, the construction of Ram temple will also be completed,” Pawar said in his letter to Champat Rai, the general secretary of the Shriram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra, thanking him for the invitation.

Pawar’s decision to skip the Ayodhya event comes at a time when alliance partners from the Opposition INDIA bloc, including the Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), among others, have announced that they will not attend the ceremony.

While the Congress said it had turned into a “BJP-RSS” event, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday that the “Pran Prathistha of Lord Ram… is the job of seers and sadhus”. In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said he would visit the famous Kalaram temple in Nashik on January 22.

Earlier, Pawar had said that he had not received an invitation for the January 22 event, and even if he did, he would not visit Ayodhya on that date due to the massive crowds.