Today in Politics: Maratha survey set to begin in Maharashtra, PM Modi to attend Parakram Diwas event at Red Fort

The Ram Temple in Ayodhya may have been inaugurated but having happened just months before the Lok Sabha elections, it will most likely remain an election issue. While the BJP will do its best to utilise the issue for electoral gains, having completed one of its main political projects, how the Opposition continues to engage with the Ram Temple issue in the coming days will be equally fascinating to observe.

Emphasising the scope of the challenge before the Opposition, Vikas Pathak writes, “For the Opposition, January 22, 2024, frames a fresh political challenge given how since 1992, in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition, it has defined itself in opposition to the temple movement … Having invested over three decades in hardening the line over the temple issue — allies forced the Atal BJP to put it on the backburner — and at the same time not wanting to be seen as insensitive to ‘Hindu sentiments,’ the Opposition parties are having to tease out strategies to strike a balance. That’s easier said than done especially in the run-up to the general elections.”

In the run-up to the temple inauguration and on the day of the consecration ceremony itself, most of the leaders of the parties in the INDIA alliance appeared cautious even as some, like West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan, took on the BJP in no uncertain terms. As is apparent from Mamata’s comments at the Kolkata rally on Monday and the Congress’s thrust during its ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, one of the counter-narratives by some Opposition parties will be built around livelihood issues and the BJP government’s alleged failure on that front. But whether that will have more currency among voters than the mixture of Hindutva