New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday asserted that the presence of Opposition leaders at the consecration ceremony at Ram Mandir in Ayodhya could have relegated them to a supporting role in a programme which, he claimed, belonged to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Tharoor further supported the Congress leadership’s decision to skip the January 22 event and expressed willingness to visit the temple after the general elections are over and all the political focus on the shrine dies down, reported PTI.
Tharoor said, “The Congress’ position is very very clear. The Congress party members are free to have their own religion and religious beliefs, and everyone’s religion is respected by the party. So I go to temples to pray, and not to political events.”
While talking to reporters, the Thiruvananthapuram MP also added, “This particular event (consecration of Ram temple) was essentially going to relegate the opposition invitees to a kind of supporting role for a prime ministerial starring spectacle. I did not think that Congress needed to play such a supporting role”.
According to PTI, Tharoor further emphasised that people should understand that the BJP has no monopoly on either Lord Ram or any of the Hindu deities. “But I am quite sure that a large number of Congress people will go outside the political context,” he added.
Earlier, Senior Congress leaders, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had ‘respectfully declined’ the Ram Temple consecration ceremony invite.
Unwilling to take questions on the ongoing seat-sharing fiasco between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress, Tharoor said that the matter is being looked after by the leadership of his party, reported PTI.
“This whole alliance or seat-sharing is being discussed on a state-by-state basis. No one is going to have a one-side fix-all solution”, he added.
