The head of the Samajwadi Party (SP), Akhilesh Yadav, has formally received an invitation to attend the 'Pran Pratishtha' ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22. In response, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh expressed gratitude for the warm invitation through a letter shared on social media.
Late on Saturday night, Akhilesh Yadav took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to acknowledge the invitation and confirmed that he, along with his family, would visit the Ram Temple as devotees after the Pran Pratishtha ceremony. In the letter addressed to the temple trust, he extended his heartfelt wishes for the successful completion of the ceremony and congratulated the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
This response from Akhilesh Yadav follows a recent political controversy surrounding the participation of various political parties in the ceremony. Earlier, Yadav had accused the BJP of demeaning opposition parties in the name of Lord Ram. The Congress, also part of the INDIA bloc along with the SP, announced its decision not to attend the ceremony, contending that it had transformed into a political event rather than a religious one.
The BJP, which aims to highlight the Ram Mandir as a pivotal election issue in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, has criticized parties declining the Ram temple invite, labeling them as "anti-Ram" parties. The INDIA bloc, comprising the Congress and SP, has united to counter the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming elections.
(With Agency Inputs)
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