In a recent statement, Akhilesh Yadav, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party President said that had it been his government, the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya would have been built within a year. The statement was in stark contrast to the earlier stand taken by the then SP government led by him.
The Supreme Court in November 2019 passed a verdict in the longstanding Ayodhya Ram-Janmabhoomi case, giving the judgment in favour of Hindus to build the temple of Lord Ram. Later in February 2020, Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra was set up as a trust for the construction of the Mandir by the Government of India on the directions of the Supreme Court.
As the construction of the temple started under the supervision of the Yogi Adityanath led government, the Samajwadi Party chief stated that the BJP was only interested in taking votes in the name of the Ram temple rather than constructing it.
Akhilesh Yadav-led UP govt had suspended Home Secretary in 2013 for convening a meeting on Ram Temple
However, Akhilesh Yadav’s latest proclamations of building a Ram Temple in a year’s time, probably aimed at wooing Hindus ahead of UP assembly elections, run counter to actions undertaken by him back in 2013 when Samajwadi Party was in power in Uttar Pradesh. During that time, he had suspended the then Home Secretary for convening a meeting to discuss aspects for the reconstruction of the Ram Mandir. Senior IAS officer Sarvesh Chandra Mishra was firstly transferred and then suspended for issuing a letter to convene a meeting to discuss the “reconstruction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya on the lines of Somnath Temple.”
As CM of #UP an angry @yadavakhilesh had suspended the Home Secretary for calling a meeting on construction of Ram Temple at #Ayodhya
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) January 1, 2022
Same Akhilesh, whose daddy Mulayam had ordered PAC to kill kar sevaks, says @samajwadiparty would have built temple in 1 year.
Watch video: pic.twitter.com/AbclJU4Ypf
“Secretary (home) Mishra mentioned a wrong and extremely misleading subject on a disputed issue in the letter regarding a meeting to be chaired by the principal secretary (home) on 14 October, and signed it,” the official statement said. Mishra, a 1997 batch IAS Officer was the Secretary (Home) of the Uttar Pradesh government. Also, he had to face departmental inquiry for the same.
The SP government called it an “error” and promised action against the guilty. Principal secretary (home) R.M. Srivastava had to apologise for the “error” and take responsibility for the folly of “junior level” officials.
The main motive behind this meeting was to ban a Vishwa Hindu Parishad yatra demanding expedition of the process to facilitate reconstruction of Ram Mandir by the Parliament. The 84 Koshi Yatra by VHP was banned in August the very same year i.e., 2013 under Azam Khan’s pressure. The administration even sought the intervention of paramilitary forces to give effect to the ban.
Samajwadi Party ideologue Mulayam Singh ordered firing on Karsevaks, defended it later
Mulayam Singh Yadav, his father, had authorised opening fire on Kar Sevaks in the Ayodhya Massacre in 1990 when he was in power. In 2017, he stood by the decision he took on October 30, 1990, to ask the forces to fire upon the karsevaks marching towards Ayodhya. If this wasn’t enough, adding insult to the injury, Mulayam Singh Yadav quipped, “If more people were required to be killed for the sake of the country’s unity and integrity, the security forces would have done it.” He earned the sobriquet ‘Mullah Mulayam’ by the Muslim community for issuing orders to fire at karsevaks.
