Uddhav Thackeray congratulates PM on Ram Temple trust

Mumbai: In another indication that the Shiv Sena is firm on continuing its Hindutva agenda, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Union cabinet’s approval of the formation of a trust to construct a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Uddhav Thackeray said that the apex court had delivered a historic judgment on the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. “It was mandatory for the government to implement the decision. I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking steps to implement the court’s decision,” Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut tweeted Uddhav Thackeray as saying.

Uddhav Thackeray’s reaction assumes significance as it again shows that the Sena has not abandoned its Hindutva agenda despite allying with ideologically opposite parties the NCP and Congress to form the government in the state. Following the Sena’s joining hands with the NCP and Congress, the Raj Thackeray-led MNS is trying to occupy the Hindutva space in state politics.

Hailing the Centre’s decision, Raj Thackeray hoped that the process to construct the temple would be expedited. “The central cabinet has given the go-ahead to the ‘Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra’. We thus expect the process of building the Ram mandir to be expedited and we wholeheartedly applaud the decision of the entire cabinet,” he tweeted.

Mr Modi announced in the Lok Sabha the formation of a trust to construct the temple, as directed by the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in November last year. “We have readied a scheme for the development of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. A trust has been formed; it is called the 'Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra,” said Mr Modi.