Swamy writes to PM on Ram Temple re-building

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate steps to rebuild the Ram Temple in Ayodhya by 2016 and fulfil the party's commitment to the electorate.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate steps to rebuild the Ram Temple in Ayodhya by 2016 and fulfil the party's commitment to the electorate.

In his letter outlining a roadmap, published by the RSS mouthpiece Organiser, Swamy suggested the appointment of a former chief justice of India like S H Kapadia as the executor who may liaise with a designated minister like Gen V K Singh.

Swamy suggested that the designated minister should issue a notice to the hereditary supervisor of the Babri Masjid and ask him to ‘withdraw his claim to the Ramjanmabhoomi’. The supervisor should also be offered ‘an alternative site’ for a mosque to be built at public expense across the Sarayu river he said.

Swamy claimed that the supervisor – a Shia – would agree to this proposal.

The former Minister also suggested that the government should call a meeting of Islamic clerics from India and abroad and seek an endorsement, and if it was not forthcoming, move an enabling bill in parliament and get it passed.

Swamy urged the government to ‘create a Ram Temple Rebuilding Committee on the Somnath Temple model’, and begin construction on an auspicious date in 2016.

Swamy cited the Allahabad High Court judgment to make a legal case for the temple. He claimed that he had – as law minister in 1991 – mediated a settlement where Muslim representatives had said that if a Hindu structure was found to pre-exist the mosque, they would give up their claims.

Swamy also reminded the PM that the Ram temple in Ayodhya was a stated commitment of the BJP in its manifesto.