“Congress disowns Ram again, takes another step towards political marginalisation ahead of 2024 polls”, First Post, January 12, 2024:

“The Congress leadership will boycott the Ram Mandir’s ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22. The Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust had invited Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for the event. The party leadership, after deliberating over the issue for over a week, has finally decided to officially give it a miss.

The Congress leadership believes that while “religion is a personal matter”, the January 22 ceremony is a “BJP-RSS event”.

Interestingly, when one looks at the Congress’ history, its stand on matters of religion has largely been opportunistic, if not dubious. From overturning the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano judgement to providing Haj subsidy, disbursing monthly salaries to Muslim clerics, and legitimising the Islamist endeavour to turn the entire country into a Waqf land through the Waqf Act of 1995, the party has often been seen to be hand in glove with fundamentalist elements…..”

Read the full article at Firstpost.com