Hyderabad: Leaders of the state BJP said that senior party leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who led the initial Ram Janmabhoomi movement, had been asked to keep away from the Ram temple consecration ceremony on January 22 owing to their age. They averred that no other meaning needed to be read into it.
However, Goshamahal MLA T. Raja Singh broke ranks to say: “Advani and Joshi should be invited specifically. I don't know why the invitations were not sent to them. They were the ones in the forefront of the movement. There could have been some communication gap and that’s why they may not have been called. But it’s a mistake to not call them.”
Reacting to the news, former BJP MLA M. Raghunandan Rao said, “The senior leaders have been asked to desist from coming by the Ram temple trust and not the BJP in keeping with their age.” But when asked that an aged leader like former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda from the JD(S) was being invited, Rao said that not only the age their health was also taken into consideration.
He claimed that not inviting them had nothing to do with an attempt to deny the leaders their legacy. “They were the first persons to be honoured. This is being done to create differences between Modi and Advani by some pseudo intellectuals,” he said.
TS BJP spokesperson Amarnath Sarangula claimed that the temple trust had decided to facilitate their visit three to four days after the event. “Even leaders like Uma Bharati have not been invited and this is the decision of the temple trust.”
With regard to Deve Gowda, Sarangula said it may have to do with him being a former PM.”
N.V.S.S. Prabhakar, state BJP vice-president, dismissed the non-invitation as a rumour.
“Everyone in the country knows that Advani, Joshi and Uma Bharati had spearheaded the agitation. I had participated in the kar seva but I am not going for the ceremony now,” he said.
