BJP MP seeks Buddha temple on disputed site

Lucknow: In what can be a major embarrassment for the ruling BJP, its MP Savitri Bai Phule has demanded that a Buddha temple should be built on the disputed site instead of a Ram temple.

“This will be possible only if Dalits and OBCs come together and make the government realise their power. If I am a MP today, it is because my parliamentary constituency Bahraich is reserved and if it had not been reserved, the BJP would have never given me the ticket. It was Dr Ambedkar who made this provision and I owe my position to him,” she said.

She further said that the Centre was trying to amend the Constitution and deprive 85 per cent of the population of its rights. “Now that elections are round the corner, the BJP is reviving the Ram temple issue. What was the government doing in the past four and a half years?” she asked.

Ms Phule also announced that she would hold a ‘Samvidhan Bachao Rally’ in Lucknow on December 23 and said that this would be one of the biggest congregations of Dalits and OBCs in Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, Mr Om Prakash Rajbhar, senior minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, said that he welcomed Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav’s statement that army should be deployed in Ayodhya in view of VHP’s ‘Dharam Sansad’.

“If the administration is allowing people to gather in Ayodhya, it means that officials have failed to implement a prohibitory order which is a serious issue,” he told reporters on Saturday.

It may be recalled that Mr Akhilesh Yadav, during his election tour in Madhya Pradesh on Friday, had said that the army should be deployed in Ayodhya because the BJP could not be trusted with the safety and security of the makeshift temple in the temple town.