CartoonClick: Thanks for the ‘Maargdarshan’ but…

Veteran BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who spearheaded the Ram Temple agitation in the early 1990s, have been “requested not to come” to Ayodhya for the consecration ceremony next month.

BJP veterans LK Advani, 96, and Murli Manohar Joshi (who is nearing 90) have been asked to skip the gala event being planned for the Ram Temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya next month. The two have been “advised” so due to their advanced age and health issues by the Ram Temple Trust general secretary Champat Rai.

Recall, that it was Advani’s Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya, and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1984, spearheaded by him along with Joshi, that culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid by kar sevaks in 1992, and the consequent construction of the Ram temple on the same site. The religious polarisation following the incident fortified BJP’s electoral fortunes.

Now, as the floodlights flash over the Ram temple with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking centre stage ahead of the 2024 general elections, the two BJP veterans, who have been in the ruling party’s ‘Maargdarshak Mandal” since 2014 (when Modi took over as PM), will probably be watching the live show unfold on TV on a cold winter night in January, warming themselves in the reflected glory of their own making!

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