Ayodhya temple invitee list pruned further to 170 to avoid crowding
With the corona threat looming large over the groundbreaking ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the organisers have further pruned the list to 170 people and issued instruction that there should be no crowding at the dais as well as Ram Janmabhoomi Complex where the main function will be held on August 5.
Former Deputy PM Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi — considered the architect of the Ayodhya movement — will attend the function virtually from Delhi. “This is being suggested because of their age and spread of corona infection in the region. Some senior officials of the Trust have spoken to both of them,” a source said.
A senior official in the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust said earlier the Trust wanted to invite 280 people but after the intervention of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the list was reduced to 200 members. After one of the temple priests and several cops posted at the complex were found corona positive the number of invitees has further gone down to 170.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of the temple.
Sources say he will reach Ayodhya on August 5 at 11 am and will remain in the temple city till 1:10 pm.
“The list could further be pruned after reports of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP State president Swatantra Dev Singh were found Covid-19 positive,” he said.
While UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, being the main host, will be invited for the function, no other Chief Minister, not even from the ruling BJP States, would be invited, the general secretary of the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust said.
Other invitees among the BJP leaders are: Yogi Adityanath, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Kalyan Singh, Jai Bhan Singh Powaiya, Rajnath Singh. RSS leaders include RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, Krishna Gopal and Indresh Kumar.
Among the VHP leaders the invitees are: Alok Kumar, (VHP working president), Sadashiv Kokje, (international president), Dinesh Chandra, (chief patron), Prakash Sharma, (former Bajrang Dal president) and Milind Parande, (general secretary).
The 15 members of ‘Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra Trust’ including Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Swami Govind Dev Giri, Champat Rai, Nripendra Mishra, K Parasaran, Swami Vasudevanand Saraswati,Swami Vishwa Prasanna Tirtha Ji Maharaj, Yug Purush Parmanand Giri, Vimalendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, Anil Mishra, Kameshwar Chaupal, Mahant Dinendra Das ji, Gyanesh Kumar from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Avneesh Awasthi from the UP Government and Anuj Jha, District Magistrate, Ayodhya are also invited.
Special invitee will be Baba Ramdev.