Punjab: Sena kickstarts ‘No Ram Mandir, No Votes’ campaign against BJP

Tandon added that soon meetings and saffron marches and shastra dharan programmes will be held in all districts of Punjab and then it will move to Haryana and Delhi.

Shiv Sena workers during a protest in Ludhiana. (Express: Gurmeet Singh)

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Shiv Sena workers in Punjab have started a ‘Ram Mandir Nahi To Vote Nahi’ (No Ram Mandir, No Votes) campaign against the BJP.

Wielding swords and raising ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans, Shiv Sena Punjab took out a ‘Bhagwa March’ from Jamalpur to Samrala Chowk in Ludhiana Monday. It was announced that a campaign will be run against the BJP in Punjab and Haryana and Hindu community will be asked not to vote for the party, if BJP-led NDA government failed to start work on construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.

They also announced a state-level saffron march and shastra dharan programme (sword distribution programme) at Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab on February 12.

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“This is a clear warning for the BJP. If they can’t get Ram Temple constructed for Hindus at Ayodhya, then they won’t get any votes from Hindu community. We will run a campaign against them if they fail to get construction started at Ayodhya. We will be holding a state-level shastra dharan programme and Bhagwa March at Fatehgarh Sahib on February 12. Under shastra dharan programme, we will be distributing swords to all our workers who will attend the rally,” said Rajiv Tandon, chairman, Shiv Sena Punjab to The Indian Express. Asked why swords will be distributed and what is the need for the same, he says, “If Ram Mandir is not constructed, then entire Hindu community should remain prepared. There can be a need anytime to use these swords. Sabko tayyar rehna chahiye…”

Tandon added that soon meetings and saffron marches and shastra dharan programmes will be held in all districts of Punjab and then it will move to Haryana and Delhi.

“Right now we are just giving a warning to the BJP and it’s allies, including Shiromani Akali Dal. Our campaign ‘Mandir Nahi to Vote Nahi’ will enter second phase if BJP fails to take any action.. Then we will campaign against BJP and tell Hindus not to vote for them because they failed to fulfil their pre-poll promise of getting Ram Mandir constructed at Ayodhya,” said Tandon.

“We will stop the campaign as soon as we see some concrete statement or action on ground at Ayodhya but otherwise this campaign against BJP will continue in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi,” he said.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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