National Bureau
NEW DELHI, October 2, 2015
Supporters of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) once again pushed for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya in the presence of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday.
“I would like to send a request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through the Home Minister, to gift Singhalji with the Ram Temple in Ayodhya,” said Vishnu Hari Dalmia, former chief of the organisation, at a function to release a coffee table book on VHP leader Ashok Singhal marking his 90th birthday. Both Mr. Singh and Mr. Bhagwat did not respond to the comment.
Mr. Bhagwat recalled his long association with Mr. Singhal. “We met at a meeting when I was prant pracharak in Nagpur and he was prant pracharak in Delhi. Then, as now, I was appreciative of his blunt ways of putting his views across,” he said. Mr. Singh on his part said post-Independence India had seen two major movements: first, the anti-corruption movement in the 1970s whose hero was Jaya Prakash Narayan, and the second, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, whose hero was Mr. Singhal.