New Delhi: In yet another move that could see the Congress be accused of peddling ‘soft Hindutva’, the party’s students’ wing on Tuesday launched a campaign to collect money for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The move by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) comes amid similar drives conducted by the BJP and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in several states.
The drive, named “Rs 1 Ram Ke Naam”, was launched by NSUI state president Abhishek Chaudhary at Commerce College at Jawaharlal Nehru Road in Jaipur. According to news agency PTI, he said the BJP and ABVP have been “looting people” in the name of raising funds for the temple.
NSUI spokesperson Ramesh Bhati said, “We will oppose this [the BJP and ABVP’s actions] with our initiative, because the Ram temple is a matter of faith for all. Taking lakhs and crores of rupees from people is wrong.”
On the first day, around 100 NSUI members collected contributions from students in the college in three sealed boxes.
All colleges in the state will be covered under the 15-day campaign and the NSUI will hand over the amount collected during the initiative to the Ram temple authorities in Ayodhya, Bhati told PTI.
However, the Congress’s national treasurer Pawan Bansal said he was not aware of the NSUI’s campaign.
He claimed that the BJP is trying to claim “usurp all the credit for the temple construction”.
“That is why when [ABVP and BJP] people approached me for contribution to the Ram temple construction, I gave nothing,” he said.
“The Congress is a secular party. I am religious, but religion is a matter of personal faith. I am a Hindu as far as personal faith is concerned, but in public matters, we act as per the mandate of Constitution,” he said.
This was perhaps a reference to several leaders holding constitutional posts, including President Ram Nath Kovind and vice president Venkaiah Naidu, donating money to the drive. Several governors and chief ministers have also made donations.
Fears have been expressed that some Hindutva groups are also using the donation drive as a pretext to polarise communities. A recently published fact-finding report from Madhya Pradesh found that Hindutva groups had been allowed by the police to stoke communal tension under the pretext of holding a donation drive for the Ram temple. The report said the administration and the police seemed to work in consonance with these group to create “an atmosphere of terror”.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP had announced plans to conduct a ‘rath yatra’ in areas that were affected by communal violence in February last year.