RAJ DALUJA
Jammu: Finally, the first citizen of the Nehru-Gandhi clan Sonia, along with the Congress President Malikarjun Kharge and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have got the invitation to pay obeisance and participate in the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya on January 22, 2024. Normally, the invite should have put to rest ‘the hue and cry’ raised by most of the allies of INDI Alliance for not having been invited to the event, but the Congress would not let it go so immediately, reason being its inherent arrogance. The Congress is always after one or the other excuse to undermine Sanatan Dharma.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh has been ‘kind enough’ to react to the invitation and to say, “Either she (Sonia Gandhi) will go or a delegation from her side will be attending the ceremony”. It is sheer arrogance-the arrogance that has made the grand old party to lick the dust after being thrown out of power. Wolves may lose their teeth but not their nature. In a split second Diggy Raja undermined the invitation as if it had been extended to participate in some social gathering or a fashion show. They can not appreciate the sensitivity involved in the ceremony–an unscheduled Diwali for Hindus in India and abroad.
That the Congress had scant regard for Lord Ram is evident from the affidavit filed in the Supreme Court by its government at the Centre on September 13, 2017 in a case related to Sethusamudram Project (Ram Setu), saying, “Valmiki Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas admittedly form an important part of ancient Indian literature, but these cannot be said to be historical records to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters and occurrences of events depicted therein.”
During the hearing of the Ram Mandir Case, a good number of lawyers affiliated to the Congress appeared for defendants. There is nothing bad or unethical for professionals to take up cases but perception matters a lot in politics. The Ayodhya case had taken extreme political dimensions with some politicians observing that there was no need for temples and instead school or hospital should be constructed at the revered site of over a billion Hindus.
Public memory is still afresh how Senior Advocate Kapil Sibbal , a senior Congress leader, appearing for Sunni Wakf Board, sought postponement of the Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid case after 2019 Lok Sabha elections, ‘as the final verdict would have political and electoral repercussions’.
The other invitee to the Ram Janambhoomi, Kharge, is on tape, released by the arch rivals BJP, suggesting that his (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) win in the elections would lead to the dominance of Sanatan Dharma and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The INDI Alliance partners-from DMK to Samajwadi Party-and Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge (son of the present Congress President) to Member Parliament Kartik Chidambaram (son of former Home Minister P Chidambaram) are day in and day out ‘ridiculing Sanatan Dharma. This being the mindset, how can the Congress claim to be sympathetic to the majority Hindus of India or their sentiments? First Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed President Rajendra Prasad’s decision to attend the installation ceremony of Somnath Shivlinga on May 11, 1951. Nehru’s plank was that such an act by the President of India would not be in keeping with India’s policy of secularism. However, Rajendra Prasad had stuck to his decision to go there and open the temple formally. Pseudo-secularism has been the Mantra of the Congress.
Will history repeat with the first citizen of the Congress Sonia Gandhi preferring not to visit Ayodhya?