The construction of Ram temple seems to have been withdrawn as one of the election issues in Ayodhya this time as the competing parties are taking up development issues and also relying on caste arithmetic to win. The BJP, for which the temple town has sharpened its Hindutva issue, is facing a challenge, especially from the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the ongoing elections in the state.
With 10 candidates, the Ayodhya assembly constituency will go to polls in the fifth phase on February 27. After it became clear that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would not contest from Ayodhya, the party reposed faith in sitting MLA Ved Prakash Gupta, while the SP has fielded former minister Tej Narayan alias Pawan Pandey.
BSP, Congress and AAP have also fielded their candidates in Ayodhya, making it a multi-cornered contest. “It is going to be a close contest in the Ayodhya assembly constituency.
As far as the issue of Ram Mandir is concerned, BJP was not able to get maximum benefit initially during this election. The issue had started to arise only after the third phase of polling,” Mahant Raju Das of Hanumangarhi temple told PTI.
He said that while the distribution of ration to the poor has benefited the people of rural areas, on the other hand many party leaders believe that they will be able to garner enough votes only with the credentials of Modi and Adityanath. He said that he did not want to mingle and connect with people. Asked if the scene would have been different had Adityanath contested from Ayodhya, Mahant said, “There is no opposition to the BJP, there is only opposition to the candidate.” SP candidate Pawan Pandey told PTI, “Lord Ram and Ram temple are not BJP’s fiefdom. Prabhu Shri Ram belongs to all of us. Even when there was no BJP, Lord Ram was there.”
Asked whether he heaved a sigh of relief after Adityanath decided not to contest from the Ayodhya seat, Pandey said it did not matter “even if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was made the candidate” (from Ayodhya). .
A flamboyant student leader of Lucknow University, Pandey had defeated local stalwart of the saffron party and sitting MP from Ayodhya Lallu Singh in the 2012 assembly elections. However, he lost to Gupta in 2017.
Pandey also alleged that the BJP has exploited farmers, harassed traders and the Ayodhya Municipal Corporation has also increased taxes significantly. “We’ll take it back,” he said. He said that the cows in the gaushalas had reportedly died due to lack of fodder and water. “They (BJP) claim to be ‘Ram Bhakt’ (devotee of Lord Ram), but Adityanath and his government are cow killers.”
When BJP candidate Gupta was asked about a section of people being displeased with his candidature, he said, “You cannot satisfy every person in politics. I am not able to make my family happy. However, I can say that work has been done for the people and there has been growth. Yogi has done a lot of development in Ayodhya.”
Brahmins, SP is trying to take advantage of the displeasure of the upper castes with the BJP government. Out of about 3.81 lakh voters in Ayodhya seat, Brahmins make up over 62,000, while Vaishya voters make up 51,000, Muslims 55,000 and Yadavs 37,000.
Iqbal Ansari, who was an independent litigant and son of Mohammad Hashim Ansari, one of the oldest litigants in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute case, said, “People now want development and jobs.”
“The people of Ayodhya are now moving away from the ‘temple-mosque issue’, and talking of development and only development. It has been two years since the Supreme Court gave its verdict. However, some people try to make temple-mosque an election issue. The temple-mosque may have been one of the issues in this election, but not the biggest among the electoral issues. Earlier Hindus and Muslims used to quarrel among themselves about this, but now there is no such thing. The main issue in this election is price rise, which has affected almost every household.”
BSP candidate Ravi Prakash said the main issues are employment and development. Aam Aadmi Party’s Shubham Srivastava also expressed similar views.
Ayodhya Mayor Hrishikesh Upadhyay said, ‘Ram temple (for us) has never been an election issue. It was a matter of faith. This was an issue mentioned in the BJP’s ‘sankalp patra’ (election manifesto), and we have fulfilled what we promised to the people.”
Prajwal Singh, a local homeopathy doctor, said, “The electoral prospects of the BJP in the district were not very good till a few days back. However, Adityanath’s roadshow on Thursday did little to stem the damage. The party’s position is not looking good in Ayodhya, Gosainganj and Milkipur assembly seats. The success of the roadshow is likely to help the saffron party.”
read all breaking news, today’s fresh news And Assembly Election Live Updates Here.
,