Lok Sabha elections: In Ayodhya, Modi talks Lohia, Ambedkar, but not mandir

Even UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who addressed the rally, did not bring up the temple issue

As the Modi wave gained steam in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, the Ram mandir movement became a poll plank in Ayodhya. “My government will build the temple,” Narendra Modi, then BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, had thundered from the stage, designed in the model of a proposed Ram temple, at an election rally. 

Five years on, as Modi, who is seeking a second term as the prime minister, returned to Ambedkar Nagar, just 25 km from the Ram Janmabhoomi site, the script had changed. The stage was hardly any different from those that host Modi rallies in other parts