Assembly Elections 2023: BJP dares Congress to bat on its Ram Mandir poll pitch

Assembly Elections 2023: BJP is clearly seen to be bracing for Ram Mandir at the centrestage for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah is a self-professed follower of the game of cricket. At the helm of strategy making for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shah has delivered some sharp turners to his political rivals. He has again lived up to a reputation for bringing twists and turns into elections, this time pitch-forking the Ram Temple issue to the forefront of the election campaigns in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of his taking part in the “Pran Pratistha” (consecration of the statue of Lord Ram Lulla) on January 22 is seeing the Ram Temple discourse entering a new phase in electoral politics.

The BJP is refreshing the memories of people in the poll-bound states, going to town with the claim that Congress was mocking it and them with the slogan “Ram Mandir wahin banayenge, par tithi nahin batayenge (Will construct Ram Temple there, but not tell the date)”. Now, the BJP is loudly proclaiming the date of the inauguration of the temple in Ayodhya.

Testing Electoral Waters

Shah was in his elements during his speech in Chhindwara, the home turf of Congress’s MP CM face Kamal Nath, last week. Chhindwara has been warming up to Lord Ram for a while, and here the credit goes to Kamal Nath. He had hosted Baba Bageshwar for a “Hanuman Katha” to ride the emotive appeal of the young spiritual preacher in the run-up to the state elections.

Incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was quick to latch on to Kamal Nath’s ploy and he too got Baba Bageshwar to hold massive spiritual meetings on similar lines around Lord Ram.

With spiritual preachers – there are a number of them in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan – preparing the electoral grounds for emotive connect during elections, Shah launched a frontal attack on the Congress by raising the Ram Temple issue in Chhindwara. Shah sent political temperature rising by reminding voters that Congress all along had been indulging in “atkana, latkana, bhatkana (block, keep hanging, distracting) in the construction of the Ram Temple”. Another element of Shah’s strategy is to draw Congress leaders into hurriedly commiting mistakes through tactless responses.

Ram Mandir Influence On MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh

BJP’s meteoric rise in the 1990s is credited to the party riding the Ram Temple issue. The BJP knows well that the party wrested power in MP in 1990 solely on the Ram Temple issue. The same holds true for Rajasthan where the party came to power in 1990. Chhattisgarh was part of MP in 1990 and experienced the same groundswell. Thus, the three poll bound states have old ties with the Ram Temple issue.

In 1990, the BJP polled a massive 46.5 per cent votes in Madhya Pradesh to bag 220 Assembly seats out of the total 269 that the party had contested to put Sunderlal Patwa in the CM’s chair in Bhopal. The Congress had won just 56 seats with a 33 percent vote share.

Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was soon afterwards in the hot seat in Jaipur after the BJP for the first time won power in Rajasthan after the 1990 state Assembly election in a triangular contest with the Congress and the Janata Dal. The BJP came to power by winning 85 Assembly seats in 1990.

Thus, the three poll-bound states have been the political laboratories of the BJP with the Ram Temple issue at the core of its chemistry with the people.

The Road To 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

BJP is clearly seen to be bracing for Ram Mandir at the centrestage for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The upcoming assembly elections could be used to sharpen this electoral narrative for the general elections.

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have begun preparing the ground. Across the country, the saffron outfits feted those who had taken part in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement recently. Durga Puja celebrations saw the Ram Temple theme loudly playing out.

People from villages across the country are also being mobilised, with a batch of 25 from each village, to go to Ayodhya in the run-up to the consecration on January 22.

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, in his Vijayadashami speech, has said that since everyone cannot be in Ayodhya on January 22, events will be held throughout the country. The plan, thus, is to turn temples in cities, blocks, and villages to host the grand celebrations.

Modi As Hindutva Flagbearer 

BJP is clearly signalling to voters that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is instrumental in fulfilling the temple aspirations by not only laying the foundation stone but also setting it up for inauguration. The BJP for a while has been very cleverly positioning Modi as the instrument for redevelopment and rejuvenation of temples and making them grand.

Modi is thus equated with the redevelopment of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, Mahakal Temple in Ujjain, Kedarnath Temple in Uttarakhand, and the expansion of facilities in Somnath Temple in Gujarat.

With Brand Modi at the forefront of BJP’s temple politics, the saffron outfit hopes that the consolidation of the Hindu vote base could overwhelm the opposition attempts to revive caste identity-based politics with their demands for caste census.

Congress In A Bind

The Congress party has gone to the Election Commission against BJP for coming up with large hoardings of the Ram Temple in the poll-bound states with Modi’s photograph prominently displayed. The BJP believes that the Congress has committed a self-goal.

Now, the BJP is going for the jugular with the Ram Mandir issue to lift the morale of party workers which had sagged a bit because of the very public faction-fighting in the ranks over ticket distribution. Further, the BJP is also hoping the emotiveness of the Ram Temple blunts the aggressive Congress pitch for subsidies.

The Congress will certainly not be in a position to match BJP’s grassroots strategies like taking 25 people from every village to Ayodhya. The pilgrims going and coming back will be central to the discourse in their villages.

Manish Anand is a senior Delhi-based journalist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.