Ahead of the 2024 general election, the grand old party, Congress, has taken a huge gamble by declining the invitation extended by the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple Trust to attend the ‘pran prathista’ ceremony in Ayodhya on 22 January. The Congress has described the inauguration of an “incomplete” temple as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ploy for electoral gain. This is a massive decision and will have ramifications for the party. For the first time, the Congress seems to have taken a clear ideological stand. Of late, the party has been toeing the soft Hindutva line, which has not yielded any electoral result. Leaders like Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh and Bhupesh Baghel in Chhattisgarh lost the election despite adopting the soft Hindutva approach.
The people of the Hindi heartland of India, during the recent assembly elections, clearly showed their choice of placing their faith in the fundamentalist saffron party, rather than in the party, the inception of which was socialist. The Congress rejected the invite by terming it a “BJP-RSS political event.” The BJP government-Sangh overlap in the events leading up to the consecration of Ram temple is also evident, with the invitations and celebrations being managed by the VHP and the RSS. The Ram temple was a movement initiated by the saffron brigade and it is now basking in glory. The Congress had to take a stand in this ideological battle, and its refusal to be part of the inauguration is a huge ideological statement.