TALE OF TWO YATRAS

As Rahul Gandhi embarks on the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, the BJP is busy preparing for the Ram Janambhoomi inauguration ceremony at Ayodhya.

- PRIYA SAHGAL

As one will recall, the Ayodhya temple is the culmination of another yatra, one that took place over three decades ago. It was the 1990 Rath Yatra undertaken by LK Advani accompanied by other BJP leaders, including current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. that gave a fillip to the temple movement.

It is this movement that has finally led to the Supreme Court go ahead to the construction of a Ram temple in at his Janmabhoomi, in Ayodhya.

It was the Ram Rath yatra that also kickstarted the BJP's electoral rise, giving its ideology an identifiable cause. The temple movement caught the imagination of the right-wing that identified with the BJP and voted it as the single largest party in 1996 election. The rest is history, but the Modi government could not reach 303 without the building blocks of 85 seats in 1989 to 120 in 1991 (immediately after the rath yatra) to 161 in 1996 when the first BJP government took office, albiet for only 13 days.