Building of Ram temple to begin in 15 months — VHP

CHENNAI, MARCH 20: The Viswa Hindu Parishad on Monday said it would commence the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya within the next 1...

CHENNAI, MARCH 20: The Viswa Hindu Parishad on Monday said it would commence the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya within the next 15 months.

VHP International secretary-general Dr Pravin Togadia told reporters here that works relating to the construction of the first floor of the temple was on expeditiously at eight centres. Once these were completed, the temple construction would commence, he said.

Asked would not VHP wait for court verdict on the matter, Togadia said while his organisation had all respect for judiciary in the country, faith is a matter which is out of the purview of the court’. Only Dharmacharyas could determine about matters of faith, he said.

"We are waiting for stone carvings and pillars to be ready. Once they are ready, we will commence building of the first floor of the temple within 12 to 15 months," he said. Asked whether the BJP-led NDA would not interfere if VHP chose to construct the temple, he said there had been several such interferences from governments in the past.

Queried what the Parishad proposed to do if Government initiated preventive action against VHP’s programme, Togadia said the matter would be dealt with at that time. "But the present government is not against our cause," he said.

Togadia alleged that there was an international conspiracy’ to subvert’ India through a major evangelisation programme for which, he claimed, several foreign institutions, including the World Bank, had committed to finance to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore.

He demanded that the Union Government take effective action to prevent this by ensuring that no churches or church-related non-governmental organisations received finances directly, but only through the government.

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Responding to a question, Togadia claimed that as a matter of policy, his organisation did not receive any money from foreign countries, including NRIs.

He said the VHP had launched a massive literacy programme throughout the country and had started 2200 single teacher schools in 20 states. In the next financial year, similar single teacher schools would be set up in 4,000 more places in the country, he said.