Ahmedabad, February 09:Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) International general secretary Pravin Togadia today said that his organisation would not allow political parties to use Ram temple as an election issue.
“Ram Temple in Ayodhya is not just an election issue. We won’t let it become an election issue,” Togadiya, who was here to launch a calendar on Goddesses of Kashi said.
He was replying to a question about how he saw the use of Ram temple issue by political parties.
“Ram Mandir will be built and that too on the entire 67 acres,” Togadiya added.
The VHP leader also demanded that Kashi be declared a World Heritage City.
“Kashi, known as the Dev Nagari (land of God) is the only ancient city in the world with so many temples. We demand that Kashi be declared world heritage city,” he said.
People have always believed that Kashi was for salvation, but most of them are not aware that Kashi has solution for “all human problems” in its over 500 ancient temples, ‘kunds’ (tanks) and ‘koopas’ (wells), he said.
Togadiya said that some enthusiasts — comprising doctors, lawyers, management experts, businessmen and corporates executives had organised an expedition named ‘Explore Kashi’ last year, in which they explored every nook and corner of the city, and gathered some exquisite information and pictures.
Togadia himself was a part of this exploration, he said. They collected information about over 500 ancient temples, some of which people were unaware of, he said.
The pictures and the information were used to produce a calendar containing over 26 pictures of Goddesses of Kashi.
He said that VHP was thinking of organising similar programmes at Somnath and Dwarka.
“We plan to have Explore Somnath and Explore Dwarka on the lines of Explore Kashi. The art, literature, traditions and architectures of these cities too need to be studied,” Togadiya said.
———————PTI