IT was around seven in the morning on January 22, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra (BJNY) was headed towards Bordowa Than, a Vaishnavite monastery in Nagaon district, Assam, the birthplace of 15th-century saint Srimanta Sankardev, the state’s most revered social reformer. The visit to the shrine on the same day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was leading the consecration of the Ram idol in Ayodhya was a carefully planned decision. The Congress had declined an invite to the grand event but was not willing to let the Narendra Modi-led BJP paint the Grand Old Party as ‘anti-Hindu’.
The visit to Bordowa Than, then, was meant to create a media opportunity to let the people of India know that the Congress may not be part of the BJP blitzkrieg around Ram but is very much part of the religious assertion of the Hindu majority of India. That’s why Rahul’s entourage wanted to visit the temple in the morning, just in time before the cameras turned to Modi in Ayodhya. The yatra organisers had ignored a letter from the monastery authorities, allegedly sent at the behest of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, asking the Congress leader to visit the shrine after 3 pm (by when the ceremonies at Ayodhya would be over). So, when Sarma’s police stopped Rahul before he reached the monastery, he and his entourage sat on the road singing ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’, Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite prayer worshipping Lord Ram.
UPHOLDING THE SECULAR BANNER IS NO LONGER A PRIORITY EVEN AMONG THOSE OPPOSITION PARTIES THAT HAVE COME TOGETHER AS THE INDIA BLOC
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