Ayodhya: Senior BJP leader Vinay Katiyar on Monday claimed that there was a wave in favour of his party in Uttar Pradesh and said constructing a grand Ram temple here was “very much” on the party’s agenda.
The BJP leader accepted that development was an election issue for the party but said “without the Ram temple everything is incomplete”.
“The Ram temple issue is in our ‘Sankalp Patra’ (manifesto) for the state polls and I have been speaking about it in all my election speeches,” he said while talking to reporters here after casting his vote in the fifth phase of the ongoing assembly elections in the state.
The firebrand leader said the Bharatiya Janata Party was committed to the temple construction issue.
He said there were three ways to fulfil that commitment — court verdict, settlement through talks by constitutionally enacting a law in Parliament or constructing the temple on the lines of the restoration of the Somnath temple in Gujarat.
Katiyar said: “The Uttar Pradesh elections are very important for us as after a win in the state we will have a majority in the Rajya Sabha and we can easily make a law in favour of constructing the temple.”
He also said that the BJP had no hard feelings for the Muslim community and was in fact working for the entire society, irrespective of caste and creed.
Ayodhya, considered the birthplace of Hindu god Rama, is a prestige constituency for the BJP.
The party rose to power on the back of the Ram temple movement following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. The party has won the assembly seat four times before suffering a huge loss to the Samajwadi Party in 2012.
IANS