The Congress had made its stance on the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya known when party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the party's leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, declined the invite to attend the event.
However, the party's statement on Kharge, Gandhi and Chowdhury declining the invite, and which depicted the party's official stand on the issue, could barely conceal the disquiet within the party with regard to the issue, and the response that the event has elicited has only added to it.
It was never going to be easy for the Congress to address the issue this way or that, given the huge political sensitivities involved. It took the party over two weeks to articulate its response to the invitation that its leaders had received, which in itself made it clear that the party found itself in a bind on the issue. The decision was taken after considering various streams of thought and the pros and cons of attending the event and declining the invite. It was felt that it was not politically feasible for the Congress leaders to attend the Ram Mandir consecration when every effort was bound to be made to turn it into an event that credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with making the temple - a prime political project of the BJP - a reality.
The obvious political cost of the move, of course, was that the BJP would use it to underline its allegation that the Congress is an anti-Hindu party.
ALSO READ: The Ram Lalla idol that was not chosen
However, it continues to be felt in certain sections of the Congress, especially after the response that the temple opening has got from the people, that the party ought to have responsed to the situation in a different manner. The presence of its top leaders in Ayodhya for the consecration ceremony would have been a powerful counter to the BJP's attacks on the Congress about allegedly indulging in appeasement of minorities for votes, it is being said now. Some have even described it as a missed opportunity for the party, pointing out that the mere act of attending the consecration ceremony would have sent across a more powerful message than all the other soft Hindutva gestures that it has tried out.
There is also a feeling in the party that it failed to prepare adequately for the event. According to a party leader, it was always known ever since the Supreme Court came out with its judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi matter that a Ram Temple would be constructed in Ayodhya and also the likely date of its inauguration. “There was no reason for us to be taken by surprise by the date of the temple's inauguration. We always knew it would happen around this date. So, it is indeed shocking that we failed to prepare ourselves for it or pre-empt the situation that we find ourselves in right now,” the leader said.
The leader said that the Congress should have begun making the right noises and gestures with regard to the Ram Temple much ahead of its inauguration. “If we had already made our presence felt in Ayodhya, much ahead of the inauguration, we could have claimed with greater authority that we will now visit it when it is complete and not at a time decided by Prime Minister Modi,” he said.
