Opinion: With Ram Temple Move, Congress Just Shot Itself In The Foot Ahead Of 2024 Lok Sabha Polls And One Can't Do Anything About It

January 22 will be a big day in the history of India. Political leaders, celebrities and key personalities from across walks of life will be attending the holy consecration ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The whole nation will witness the historic event live on television but they will miss one thing - the presence of the Congress party in the event. The grand old party, which claims itself to be a custodian of secularism, has just shot itself in the foot and has likely killed its poll prospects for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as well. 

While the Congress party last night announced to boycott the Ram temple consecration ceremony event, it forgot that the issue is not limited to only Uttar Pradesh but will affect many states across the country. "Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in our country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain. While abiding by the 2019 Supreme Court judgement and honouring the sentiments of millions who revere Lord Ram, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have respectfully declined the invitation to what is clearly an RSS/BJP event," said the Congress party.

Here is the statement of Shri @Jairam_Ramesh, General Secretary (Communications), Indian National Congress. pic.twitter.com/JcKIEk3afy — Congress (@INCIndia) January 10, 2024

Congress also said that it received the invitation last month. If you read the statement carefully, the Congress has highlighted that the inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been brought forward for electoral gains. This may be the case but by not attending the event, the Congress party has made the 2024 Polls a fully one-sided match, especially in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. 

While the Congress party has been hesitant in publicly accepting the Ram Temple verdict, now the BJP has got another weapon to portray the grand old party as an anti-Hindu establishment. The rejection of the invitation by the Congress will further help BJP polarise the Hindi heartland. The Congress has definitely failed to understand the larger mood of the nation and thus is bound to be doomed again in the 2024 parliamentary polls.

A senior Congress leader from Gujarat, Arjun Modhwadia, took to social media platform X to express his disapproval of the party's decision to skip the event. “Lord Shri Ram is the deity of worship. This is a matter of faith and belief for the people of the country. The Indian National Congress should have stayed away from making such political decisions,” Modhwadia said.

In the words of the Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam, "It's unfortunate to consider Ram Temple a project of the BJP, RSS, VHP or Bajrang Dal. Congress is not against Lord Ram and Hindus. Sadly, some people who have played a role in the party taking this decision. This is a very painful decision and has broken the hearts of crores of Congress party workers. It was Rajiv Gandhi who opened the locks of the Ram Temple. This decision is very painful."

#WATCH | Congress rejects Ram temple invitation, party leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam says, "Congress is not against Lord Ram and Hindus. Sadly, some people who have played a role in the party taking this decision. This decision has broken the hearts of many party workers. This… pic.twitter.com/635kOOmaR4 — ANI (@ANI) January 10, 2024

By indicating the role of 'some people' in this decision, Acharya Pramod Krishnam may be indicating senior Congress leaders who are mostly from South India. The temple politics of the South and North are entirely different. If Pramod Krishnam's indication is towards leaders like KC Venugopal, Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh, then these leaders have failed in calculating the sentiments of people and their devotion towards Lord Ram. 

Another reason for the Congress party rejecting the Ram Temple invitation could be one similar to the rejection of the invite for the inauguration of the new Parliament building. According to many senior leaders, the Congress did not attend the inauguration of the new Parliament building as Rahul Gandhi was not eligible to attend the event at that point in time due to the Gujarat High Court verdict in 'Modi Surname' case that ripped him off the Lok Sabha membership. Congress desperately wants Rahul Gandhi to be the Prime Ministerial candidate and his absence during the inauguration of the new Parliament could have sent a negative message and thus Congress played safely by not attending the event. Now, since the Ram Temple trust has decided to invite leaders of all recognized political parties and leaders of both houses of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi again became ineligible to attend the event as he is just an MP of the Congress party. While Mallikarjun Kharge is the Congress president and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha whereas Sonia Gandhi is the Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson. Thus these three leaders, not Rahul Gandhi, received an invite from the temple trust.

In any of the cases, the decision is likely to hurt the Congress party as the BJP has already started making it a poll plank against the opposition. This also indicates that Congress has internally accepted that they cannot stop the BJP from coming to power in 2024 and thus their focus has shifted towards scoring political browny points, which will be of no use during the 2024 Polls.