Shiv Sena puts pressure on BJP over Ram temple

Shiv Sena has been at loggerheads with the BJP ever since they fought the 2014 Maharashtra assembly election separately, and has been critical of the Narendra Modi government’s economic policies.

The Shiv Sena on Thursday stepped up pressure on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) during the Winter Session of Parliament over the Ayodhya issue, accusing the ruling party of doing nothing in last four-and-a-half years to build a Ram temple, despite having a full majority in the Lok Sabha.

Supporters of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) at "Dharma Sabha" or a religious congregation organised by the VHP at Ramlila Ground to press their demand for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, in New Delhi. (Burhaan Kinu/HT PHOTO)

Raising the matter in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour, Sena demanded that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the centre should expedite the matter in the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing the dispute, or bring an ordinance at the earliest to build the temple.

“The BJP got clear majority but even then it did not take an initiative to build Ram temple in Ayodhya. We demand that the government bring an ordinance on the issue,” Sena MP Anandrao Vithoba Adsul said in the lower house of the Parliament.

Sena has been at loggerheads with the BJP ever since they fought the 2014 Maharashtra assembly election separately, and has been critical of the Narendra Modi government’s economic policies.

Adsul reminded the BJP that it had taken out a yatra under the leadership of LK Advani in 1990 for construction of the temple, and accused it of having forgotten its core issue of Hindutva–an ideology which brought the two parties together.

Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had visited Ayodhya on November 25 as part of his party’s push to build a Ram temple there.