Shashi Tharoor yet to receive invite to attend Ram Temple consecration: ‘Won't visit before…'
Why I Am a Hindu said. Senior Congress leader Shashi Tahroor said the Opposition leaders should not be branded 'anti-Hindu' if they don't attend the consecration of the Ram Temple and neither should they be seen to be "playing into BJP hands" if they do.
On whether giving the consecration of the Ram Temple a miss could hurt the prospects of the Opposition INDIA bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Shashi Tharoor said, "People are trying to make it a political issue but is that fair?" "Going to a temple is an individual decision. Individuals have been invited, let them make their own decisions.
To my mind, a temple is absolutely not a political stage, it is a place for people to contemplate the divine and do their prayers and it is a personal choice. Individuals have been invited and letting individuals decide if they wish to go is my stand," Congress MP Shashi Tharoor added.
Claiming that he was yet to receive a formal invite to attend the Ram Temple consecration, Tharoor said, “As far as I am concerned, I have not been invited, so I don't have to make the decision." The chairman of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir Construction Committee invited former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and the party's leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for the consecration ceremony. The Ram Temple invitations to the Congress's top leaders have put the party in a quandary as its UDF allies in Kerala and several Muslim bodies are not in favour of Congress leaders attending the event.
The Congress leadership has also not committed on their stance -- on whether no Congress leader would attend the January 22 event. The ceremony, scheduled for January 22, will witness the installation of the idol of Ram
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