Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Tuesday hit out at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for calling the Ram temple consecration ceremony a ‘political Narendra Modi event’.
“Rahul Gandhi lives in this 'la-la' world, in my opinion...The people of India are wise enough. They understand Rahul Gandhi's politics ...And we will leave it to the people of India to decide what answer they should give to Rahul Gandhi,” Chandrasekhar said at a press briefing.
“They understand Rahul Gandhi's politics. And we will leave it to the people of India to decide what answer they should give to Rahul Gandhi. His guru, Sam Pitroda, also said the same thing a few days ago. So he can think whatever he wants but it's a deeply felt emotional issue for crores of Indians,” the minister added.
“Rahul Gandhi thinks that our faith can be manipulated by somebody else. He (Rahul Gandhi) wants to believe that he's free to do that but, that is not the case. Indians are going to make a beeline at some point in their lives to Ram temple in #Ayodhya. They (devotees) will do that not because of anything else but just because of the deep faith they have in the God they worship,” he added.
The minister's remark comes after Gandhi at a briefing in Nagaland called the January 22 Ram temple ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony a BJP-RSS event. “The RSS and the BJP have made the 22nd January function a completely political Narendra Modi function. It's a RSS BJP function and I think that is why the Congress President said that he would not go to the function. We are open to all religions, all practices," the former Congress president said.
The Congress top leadership, i.e party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former chief Sonia Gandhi and party's floor leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will not be attending the consecration ceremony to be presided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The seven-day rituals of the ceremony began on Tuesday morning and will culminate with the main event on January 22.