New Delhi: Allegations of embezzlement of collections at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya have opened up a political flank around the BJP's most cherished political and ideological project. With the Congress party, Samajwadi Party and others directly attacking the functioning of the trust managing the temple's affairs, the matter has escalated into a controversy far beyond just the alleged donation-box theft.

In a direct attack on the Uttar Pradesh government setting up an SIT to probe the allegations of fraud, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on X Monday (June 15):

It is unfortunate that the BJP rule [in Uttar Pradesh] is corrupt – else, IITs would have been set up, instead of SITs, he wrote. Recall that it is the Samajwadi Party that first brought to light the allegations of misappropriation of funds received from the public at the Ram temple.

He also put the Prime Minister and his government in a tight spot, by tweeting about providing "assistance" to police in probing the charges, since the culprits "were not very far".

For years the BJP claimed that an independent trust built the Ram temple on the orders of the Supreme Court. Now, with that trust – its members said to be handpicked – itself coming under a cloud of suspicion, the explanation being offered, that it did not run the temple's day-to-day affairs, does not appear to be working.

Instead, parties are pointing the finger of blame at the BJP and prime minister. Citing the Dainik Bhaskar newspaper, whose report shared details of the alleged functioning of the trust and placed the extent of losses at Rs 200 crore, the Congress party wrote on X that the allegations amounted to a "robbery of faith":

"This is clearly daylight robbery of faith. The faith of millions of devotees is tied to the Ram Temple. People from BJP and RSS have hurt their faith through this donation theft," said the party's post.

There are also demands that the entire Ram Mandir trust, particularly Champat Rai and other trust functionaries, need to be independently investigated. AAP MP Sanjay Singh has said that because the trust was constituted by the government of India (after the Supreme Court verdict) and because the PMO has a role in oversight, Modi cannot escape responsibility.

Citing claims that more than 50 temple employees were involved in siphoning off offerings and raising questions about past land purchases by the trust, Singh has called for an investigation, dissolution of the current trust and its replacement with what he described as "honest and impartial members".

How independent was the trust?

Even in 2020, while asserting that an "independent trust" was being formed to construct the temple in Ayodhya, the government, including the PIB press release issued by the Prime Minister's office, had played up the Modi's role in it.

The press release of 404 words mentioned "Prime Minister" four times and "PM" nine times:

The trust's own website says that 12 of its 15 members were nominated after Modi announced the trust's formation in Parliament. Home Minister Amit Shah had announced the composition of the trust.

Impossible to ignore

Further, the sheer scale of the fraud being alleged makes it impossible to ignore. This is especially true since the BJP has not only claimed political dividends via the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmbhoomi project for decades but also touted it as a long overdue assertion of Hindus.

"Reports of an alleged Rs 200 crore scam in the donations to the Prabhuji Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya are extremely serious and alarming. If such a massive financial irregularity has indeed occurred, the question arises: who will take responsibility for it? " K.P. Malik, political editor of Dainik Bhaskar wrote on X, calling the fraud allegations an assault on Hindu faith and seeking accountability.

The arguments circulating in the public appear to be that if the primary symbol of refashioned, aggresive Hindu identity comes under a cloud of financial irregularities, that is a big problem for the prime minister and his party and government, which promoted that identity at any cost.

What is more, a ground-level mobilisation appears to have started against the BJP in Ayodhya over the temple fund misappropriation issue.  On Monday, June 15, a Congress party leader, Sharad Shukla, placed a giant hoarding in Ayodhya town announcing the allegations of corruption in the Ram temple daan-peti funds and laying out what the punishment for that might be, as per religious tradition.

In a state where BJP rode to power on an anti-corruption plank with the prime minister as the face of that claim, Municipal workers were then seen bringing down the poster against ccorruption. In videos posted online, as the poster fell, it revealed another billboard, this one advertising a commercial product.

Old Hindutva voices surface

Old Hindutva flagberarers have started resurfacing ever since the allegations came to light, directing their anger against those who run the temple's affairs today. One such figure is BJP leader Vinay Katiyar, once a pivotal and divisive figure in the politics of Uttar Pradesh and in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

"Ye jitney hain, sab chor hai," said Katiyar when reporters asked him about the alleged embezzelment. He called "all of them" – meaning everyone involved in the Ram temple project since he had to relinquish control over it – "thieves".

Katiyar is a former BJP general secretary, former chief of the party in Uttar Pradesh, former Rajya Sabha member, former Lok Sabha member, former face (among many) of the Babri Masjid's demolition and former voice for building a Hindu temple in its place. A criminal case against him regarding his role in the demolition went nowhere.

He founded the Bajrang Dal in 1984, but its expansion in recent years, into a kind of stormtrooper force, was without much help from him. He was barely involved in the Ram temple construction and not seen at the consecration ceremony, which Modi led.

He never shied from declaring how embittered his sidelining made him feel.

Now, after chafing against the bit of a glossy version of Hindutva in the Modi era, Katiyar has reminded his party of the "sacrifices" he and "people like him" made so that the current crop of leadership could flourish.

Watch him do that:

After the BJP lost the election in the Lok Sabha seat that includes Ayodhya, Katiyar once again publicly positioned himself as a stakeholder in the political space of the area. Rather than "retiring", even after being sidelined, he continued to stoke religious ill-feeling among residents of the Awadh region.

This is why Katiyar's assertion would be of concern in Uttar Pradesh, which heads for assembly polls in 2027.

In the next election, the BJP would be making its third straight bid for victory led by chief minister Adityanath, while in the last electoral contest (Lok Sabha, 2024), the Samajwadi Party and Congress had the saffron party against its back.

Political contours in 2027

In 2004, the BJP jettisoned Katiyar, then its UP chief, after the Congress party rejigged its own state unit. The Congress had at the time inducted fresh faces from non-elite castes to widen its social base, while the BJP, sensing loss of elite-caste voters, replaced Katiyar, who belongs to a backward class.

The BJP had, in a sense, given up on consolidating backward-class voters at the time. Though the situation may have changed since then, in 2027, the BJP would still be facing off against the Samjawadi Party's backward-Dalit-Adivasi (PDA) electoral arithmetic all over again, possibly in combination with the Congress party and other allies – and this alliance of non-elite social groups combined with others was a key factor behind the saffron party's defeat in Ayodhya.

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