The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is planning to launch a seven-day awareness campaign among the rural people of Uttar Pradesh from March 10, in order to educate them on its agenda of taking over the mosque next to the existing Krishna Janambhoomi temple at Mathura.
The sadhus affiliated to the VHP would tell the people that the idgah adjoining the Krishna temple belongs to the Hindus and the Muslims offering namaz at the mosques are mere tenants.
Earlier, the Muslims had the right to pray at the mosque only twice in a year, one at the time of Id-ul-zoha and the other during Bakr-Id, VHP spokesperson Ramnath Ojha said yesterday.
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Further details of the programme would be chalked out at the VHP trustees three-day meeting scheduled to begin from today. VHP President Vishnu Hari Dalmia, working president Ashok Singhal, general secretary Giriraj Kishore and 172 other trustees would attend the meeting.
The VHPs plan is to become aggressive on the Krishna temple liberation issue and to emphasise hardcore Hindutva. The same sadhus who expressed strong reservations against the BJP at the VHPs dharamsansad in Delhi in Novemember would spearhead the mass contact programme in UP.
These sadhus had criticised the BJP for trying to create a secular space for itself and argued at the dharamsansad that the party should concentrate on projecting its image of being defenders of the Hindus interests.
The timing of the proposed awareness campaign is significant as the farmers would be free from agricultural activities and may participate in the VHPs rallies and public meetings. The Bajrang Dal, a wing of the VHP would provide the organisational support to the campaign.
Through its awareness campaign, the VHP plans to prepare the people for another temple movement, which it would launch at a more oportune time in order to derive maximum political advantage. The VHP knows that once the temple movement becomes a mass movement, the BJP would automatically include it in its agenda.
Ashok Singhal is on record, saying that the BJP would be left with no choice but to support the movement for the liberation of the Krishan temple at Mathura and the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi. Even the issue of the liberation of the Ram janambhoomi temple at Ayodhya was not on the BJPs agenda in the initial stages, he recalled.
Some VHP strategists calculate that the movement might blunt the dominant Yadav communitys strong opposition to the BJP, as they consider Krishna to be their ancestor. The states rural women would be the VHPs prime target during the campaign, he added.
The movement would also have wide appeal in the southern Indian states, where Krishna is a popular diety, a VHP office bearer said. The Ayodhya movement failed to make as much impact in the south as the Sangh parivar would have wanted, as Rama is not worshipped a deity in most southern temples.