Delighted over the use of a stone block from his land to carve the idol of Ram Lalla to be consecrated in Ayodhya on January 22, a Dalit farmer in Karnataka on Saturday announced that he would donate part of his property to construct a Ram temple in his village. Ramdas H, 70, from the Gujjegowdanapura village near Mysuru, said it was destiny that a stone block from his property was used for the Ram Lalla idol made by Karnataka sculptor Arun Yogiraj. He said he was happy after Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra selected the idol made by Yogiraj for the consecration in Ayodhya. "I have 2.14 acres of land and wanted to clear rocks for agricultural purposes. We gave it to a local quarry contractor who cleared the stones and Yogiraj selected one among them (for making the idol)," said Ramdas. "We have an Anjaneya temple facing south, making it look like the (Anjaneya idol) is looking at the site from where the stone was mined (for the Ram Lalla idol). Thus, I have decided to donate four guntas of land to construct a Ram temple here. We will meet Arun Yogiraj to carve the Ram idol for the temple," said Ramdas, who is, however, not invited to the Ram Mandir inauguration in Ayodhya. Ramdas, who worked as a physical education teacher, said, "We made several attempts to level the land for agricultural purposes in 2022 but did not work, and later, we had no choice but to remove the stones." Srinivas Nataraj, a local quarry contractor who took up the work to clear the rocks, said that one huge rock was split into three blocks and Yogiraj chose one of the blocks. Since then, stone blocks from the property were again taken to carve idols of Bharatha, Lakshmana and Shatrughna, he said. Nataraj also said that the mines and geology department fined him Rs 80,000 for illegal quarrying on the land. He said some informants had passed the message to the department even before the stone block delivery and he was penalised. "We spent about Rs 6 lakh to transport the stone block to Ayodhya but have received only Rs 1.95 lakh till now from a person named Srinath, who is linked to the trust," said Nataraj, who has also not been invited for the January 22 Ram Mandir inauguration.
