On 31st December (Sunday), Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that his government and his party are in full support of Ram Mandir. The Congress leader added that they are in favour of the Ram Mandir and not against building the temple.
“We are not against the issue of Ayodhya Ram Mandir, we are not against building a temple either, we are not against Ram Mandir we are in favour of Ram Mandir,” Siddaramaiah was quoted saying by News agency ANI on Sunday.
Bengaluru | Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah says, "Those who break the law will be arrested, no one will be arrested if they are innocent people will not be harmed in our government, and those who committed crimes will be prosecuted…We are not against the issue of Ayodhya Ram Mandir,… pic.twitter.com/MNEE2s7e2f
— ANI (@ANI) December 31, 2023
A day earlier, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah had said that so far he had not received the invitation for the consecration ceremony and he would consider whether to attend it or not only after getting the invite.
Strikingly, as per media reports, Siddaramaiah gave these remarks to cover up his minister’s controversial statement against the Ram Mandir inauguration ceremony describing it as a “political stunt” just like ‘Pulwama’.
Earlier in the day on 31st December, Congress leader and Karnataka Planning and Statistics Minister, Dasharathaiah Sudhakar claimed that the BJP government was using a similar strategy and exploiting the Ram Mandir as it used Pulwama in previous Lok Sabha elections.
Sudhakar said, “The BJP government used the Pulwama terror attack to secure votes in the last Lok Sabha elections, and this time, they are holding Lord Ram’s photo now.”
While speaking to media personnel in Chitradurga, he added, “The inauguration of Ayodhya Ram Mandir is a stunt. People are not fools. We have been fooled twice. I am confident that we won’t be fooled for the third time.”
The Karnataka Minister stated that it is true that the opening of the Ram Mandir is in the background of the Lok Sabha Elections. He said, “MLA Raghumurthy and I contributed money to the Ram Mandir. We have also given bricks in the past.”
While he noted that Lord Ram is a god for everyone, he called the temple’s inauguration a gimmick during the election period.
He argued, “BJP is using India’s religious beliefs to garner votes. Where was the Ram Mandir in the last elections?”
Pulwama Terror Attack
On February 14, 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel to Srinagar via National Highway 44 came under a suicide bombing attack in Pulwama. 22-year-old Adil Ahmad Dar, a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist from Kakapora in Jammu and Kashmir, rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a bus carrying the CRPF personnel. 40 of our jawans were martyred in that cowardly terror attack.
The terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), based in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack. They also posted a video of the Islamic terrorist Adil Ahmad Dar, who had joined the outfit a year before. In an official statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that Pakistan was responsible for assisting terrorist attacks and that JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar had been “given the freedom to target India.”
However, the ghastly terror attack was not spared by certain opposition leaders and political parties who tried to spin conspiracy theories around the attack. They have been trying to pin the blame on Narendra Modi instead alleging it to be a staged attack despite Pakistan-based terrorists staking a claim for it. Incidentally, several of the perpetrators of this ghastly attack have died in mysterious circumstances in Pakistan and elsewhere in the recent past.
