Shashi Tharoor explains why Congress will not attend Ayodhya’s Ram temple event

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has described the Ayodhya Ram temple ‘Pran Pratishtha’ or consecration ceremony as an event for the Bharatiya Janata Party to get political mileage and if the Congress participates, it will become a political choice, and not just a personal one.

Congress bigwigs – national president Mallikarjun Kharge, former president Sonia Gandhi and the party’s Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury – have turned down the invitation to the grand Ram temple opening on January 22, calling it a “BJP-RSS” event.

“Our party has many members who believe in many faiths and they are welcome to practice them. Hindus in the party have every right to offer prayers to Ram Lalla. But the party felt that going for a political event – for an incomplete temple because the work is not over (for the grand temple of Ayodhya)… The timing of this (‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony) appears to be designed to benefit the political interests of the ruling party (BJP). And therefore, if we participate, then it will become a political choice, not just a personal one and people need to under this as well,” Tharoor told reporters.

Tharoor added, “Let the Lok Sabha elections conclude and let the temple be fully constructed. I will go. I will visit Kashi Vishwanath as well. There is nothing wrong in going there to pray as a believer.”

The Thiruvananthapuram MP also said there was nothing wrong in Hindus celebrating the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. “However, the Congress party had decided not to participate as our presence at the venue would send out a different message,” Tharoor quoted as saying by The New Indian Express.

Earlier in the day, in a post on social media platform X, Tharoor referred to a speech made by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in 1999 at the Ramakrishna Mission, emphasising how Hindu liberal thoughts contributed to India’s secular identity.

The Congress leader’s move came a day after the BJP criticised the grand old party’s decision to decline the invitation to its three top leaders to attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya, claiming it exposed the party’s inherent opposition to India’s culture and Hindu religion.

In a post on social media platform X, where he attached Gandhi’s speech highlighting Swami Vivekananda’s views on Hinduism, the Congress Working Committee member expressed his belief that the teachings of Vivekananda carry a highly relevant and impactful message for the present day. Sonia Gandhi, in her speech on January 12, 1999, when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government was in power, had expressed concern and sadness over the “appropriation” of Swami Vivekananda – who had admired “India’s pluralistic and composite heritage” — by certain sections of society.

Tharoor, in his post, said the Indian National Congress’s (INC) association with Hindu liberalism is not a recent response to events over the past decade but rather a longstanding and deeply held conviction.