Advani to attend Ram temple consecration ceremony

New Delhi : BJP stalwart L K Advani, who was at the forefront of the Ram janmabhoomi movement, will attend the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, VHP president Alok Kumar said on Thursday. However, it remains unclear whether party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi will attend the ceremony or not. "Advani ji has said that he will come. If required, we will make special arrangements for him," Kumar told PTI. About Joshi, Kumar said, "he has said that he will try to come to attend the event".

Advani, 96, is a founding member of the BJP and, along with Joshi, was at the forefront of the Ram janmabhoomi movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. Joshi is also a founding member of the BJP. The Ram temple trust had last month said that both Advani and Joshi were unlikely to attend the consecration ceremony due to their health and age.

Giving a detailed list of the invitees at a press conference in Ayodhya, trust general secretary Champat Rai had told reporters, "Both are elders of the family and considering their age, they were requested not to come, which was accepted by both." As Rai's statement kicked off a controversy, VHP working president Kumar said in a statement the next day that he had invited Advani and Joshi to attend the consecration ceremony.

The BJP slammed the Congress' decision to decline the invitation to its three top leaders to attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya, claiming it has exposed the party's inherent opposition to India's culture and Hindu religion. Due to its feelings of "jealousy, malice and inferiority complex" towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress had gone to the extent of opposing the country and is now opposing God, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi told reporters. The Ram temple in Ayodhya symbolises the highest values of Indian traditions and culture, he said, but for the Congress and other opposition parties with a similar mindset extremist politics is more important, he alleged. Trivedi noted that Iqbal Ansari, the Muslim litigant in the land dispute case involving the temple and the Babri mosque which one stood there, was also extended an invite reflecting the Hinduism's generosity and he accepted it as well but it is the Congress which has chosen to boycott the ceremony.