While the BJP is going all out for the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ or consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, scheduled for January 22, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is treading carefully on the issue. The reason for this, party leaders say, is that the Opposition party knows it cannot portray itself to be on either side – against the temple, or for it. SP MP Dimple Yadav, party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife, on Tuesday said she would attend the Ram Temple consecration ceremony if invited. On the other hand, Akhilesh on Thursday gave a vague answer on whether he will attend the ceremony. He said that he will go to the Temple “whenever God wants him to”. Meanwhile, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has not made it clear whether the former UP chief minister will be invited for the event. “Aur hamare purvaj aur hum logon ke samaj mein ye mana jaata. ki jab bhagwan bulate hain, tabhi darshan paate hain aap (Our ancestors and the people from the community believe that when the Lord calls us, only then can we go and worship),” the SP chief had said on Thursday at a press briefing in Lucknow. SP insiders say the party’s stand is still ambiguous because the situation is a Catch-22 for the SP. Knowing that it depends substantially on Muslim vote in the state – something that was evident in the 2022 state Assembly polls too – the SP does not want to irk the minority community. The SP also does not want to turn its back on the Temple event, knowing that a large section of UP’s population is celebrating the historic event. “We know what we are, but we have to keep in mind that to win elections we need votes from all communities, and hence, we will continue to tread a balanced line on the subject. We are not against it, but we won’t celebrate it like the BJP will,” said an SP leader on condition of anonymity. The SP has also faced repeated attacks from the BJP over the Ram Temple issue in the last few years. The BJP has accused the SP of being allegedly “anti-Hindu”, and demanded its apology over police firing on karsevaks in Ayodhya in 1990 during the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government. In the run-up to the 2022 UP elections, top BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party national president J P Nadda and CM Yogi Adityanath, made references to the incident in their campaign speeches. In 2022, while the BJP won 255 of the 403 Assembly seats, the SP secured 111 seats to become the principal Opposition. In November 2017, SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav had justified his order to open fire on karsevaks marching towards Ayodhya in 1990, saying if even more people were required to be killed for the country’s unity and integrity, the security forces would have done it. Akhilesh on the other hand has been mostly evasive on the incident. SP national spokesperson Faraz Uddin Kidwai on Saturday said, “Lord Ram is equally everyone’s. The BJP has no monopoly over a God, and hence, the SP doesn’t need its permission to worship Lord Ram. When Lord Ram calls us, we will go. After January 22, the Ram bhakts within the party will go and do darshan.” Since the announcement of the date of the consecration ceremony, no one from the BJP has made any remarks on the SP and the Ram Temple, but as the 2024 parliamentary elections draw near, the issue is expected to be part of the BJP's ammunition against the SP, its biggest rival in UP which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In the 2019 general elections, while the BJP won 62 seats in UP, the SP managed to get just five.
