Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for reviving the Ram temple issue ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed on Monday said that building the temple where the Babri Masjid stood is a "challenge to the constitutional provisions".
"If the BJP intends to construct the Ram temple where the Babri Masjid was standing, that is a challenge to the constitutional provisions and no civilised society can accept it," Ahamed, who is also the president of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), told IANS over phone from Kozhikode, Kerala.
Addressing the BJP's national executive and national council meeting in Nagpur on Sunday, the party's senior leader LK Advani said that it was wrong to believe that his party had "returned to Ram" because it had never abandoned the god.
"Be it Ram Setu or Ram temple (in Ayodhya), we have never abandoned Ram," Advani said.
Advani said the true victory of Ram would be when a "magnificent temple" is constructed in Ayodhya.
Radical Hindu mobs brought down the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh on December 6, 1992, claiming it was built at the site of Lord Ram's birthplace.
{{/usCountry}}Radical Hindu mobs brought down the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh on December 6, 1992, claiming it was built at the site of Lord Ram's birthplace.
{{/usCountry}}BJP president Rajnath Singh said Saturday, "We will build the Ram temple."
"Babri Masjid issue is still pending verdict of the court. It is a sub-judice matter," Ahamed said.
He said, "No civilised society could accept" the BJP's agenda to construct the Ram temple where the mosque was standing.
"I don't think right thinking people, who are majority in the country, would accept the idea of construction (of the Ram temple), where the Babri Masjid was standing," Ahamed said.
"My party is not opposing construction of Ram temple except on the land where Babri Masjid was standing," the IUML leader added.