Lucknow: Ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh today dared the BJP on the Ram temple issue, saying the state government will not allow "lifting or installation" of even a single stone at the disputed structure, while a party MLC offered Rs 10 lakh and a gold crown to the saffron party to start construction at the site.


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Challenging the BJP to start construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, a Samajwadi Party MLC (Member of Legislative Council) today offered Rs 10 lakhs and a gold crown for it.


"With Assembly election of Uttar Pradesh round the corner, BJP is raking up the Ram temple issue. I challenge them to start construction and I will give them Rs 10 lakhs and a gold crown," SP MLC Bukkal Nawab told PTI.


SP spokesman and Cabinet minister Shivpal Yadav said,"BJP is playing with the sentiments of people in the name of construction of Ram temple. They are not telling the site where they will build the temple. Our government will follow the court order in this regard." "Na ek eint uthegi na hi lagegi (neither a single brick will be lifted nor it be installed)," he told reporters.


He also alleged that the BJP was raising the issue of cow slaughter but its own men were involved in slaughtering. MLC Bukkal Nawab said, "Though the matter is pending before SC, BJP leaders are busy in giving dates for start of construction for the temple. BJP itself did not want construction of the temple there (in Ayodhya) and was only playing politics on the issue."


However, the party downplayed Nawab's statement. When asked about it, Shivpal Yadav said, "It's good if Bukkal gets the temple constructed...He might have said for helping in construction of Ram temple, but he has not said where it will be constructed." BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had on January 6 claimed that work on the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya would start before this year-end.


Swamy had, however, made it clear that the temple would not come up through a movement but only after the court verdict, which he hoped would come by August-September and with the mutual consent of Muslim and Hindu communities.


In December last year, almost six months after VHP announced its nationwide drive to collect stones for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, two trucks of stones arrived in the temple city. "Two trucks of stones have been unloaded at Ram Sewak Puram, a VHP property in Ayodhya, and 'Shila Pujan' (praying of the stones) has been performed by Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, the president of Ram Janam Bhumi Nyas," VHP spokesman Sharad Sharma had said then.