Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday asserted that Ram temple will be constructed at "the very place, the very spot" where the deity was believed to have been born, and there should be no confusion regarding this.
Addressing booth-level BJP workers here, the firebrand leader explained his government's controversial city-renaming acts, saying pilgrims visiting the birthplace of Lord Rama now visit Ayodhya and not Faizabad district and those who participate in the ongoing Kumbh festival were coming to Prayagraj and not Allahabad.
Adityanath was speaking at a meeting of shakti kendra prabharis (micro-level election managers) drawn from four Lok Sabha segments of Purnea, Araria, Katihar and Kishanganj, all falling in the Seemanchal area which has a sizable Muslim population.
"Much is going to happen in UP in the time to come. Do not worry, we have made it clear that the temple of Maryada Purushottam Shri Ram will be constructed at the very place, at the very spot. Let there be no confusion," he said, amid a thunderous applause from party workers.
Stating that Bihar was the birth place of Sita Mata, Adityanath came down heavily on the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal, saying the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led party had made it a matter of shame to be called a Bihari.
He praised Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi for slowly changing the state's perception.
A similar change of perception has been effected by the Narendra Modi government at the national level and I was told by a visitor at the recently-held Pravasi Sammelan in Varanasi that they are proud of the new-found identity under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, Adityanath said.
"We are not like them (the opposition) who side with those who speak in favor of splitting up the country. We believe in slaying 100 soldiers across the border for every jawan of ours who is killed," he said.
He claimed that under his rule, criminals and terrorists did not dare venture into Uttar Pradesh, which he believes led to the Kumbh going on fairly peacefully.
We are not like the RJD which worships terrorists, we believe in sending terrorists to their actual destination, he said.
He asked the people of Bihar to visit Kumbh and appreciate the change that UP has undergone. "For long, people had to contend with the 'sangam' which was the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati, but now Saraswati koop has been thrown open for the pilgrims after nearly five centuries," the UP chief minister said.
Similarly, the people can now have a darshan of the sacred Akshayavat tree, which he alleged Mughal emperor Akbar and his successors had tried to destroy in vain.
Exhorting the BJP workers to work with full dedication towards ensuring the victory of the NDA in all 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Yogi said for a committed party worker sky is the limit in the BJP unlike other parties. He said party president Amit Shah was a booth-level worker in the 1980s.
You have a lot of achievements to speak of, unlike 2014 when you had the leadership of Narendra Modi and the resentment of the people against the Congress-led UPA to propel the BJP to victory, he said.
Now you can go to the people with Modi governments achievements in improving the lives of all sections of society, with latest examples from the budget, he said.
Yogi spoke in the presence of a host of BJP leaders, including state president Nityanand Rai, general secretary (organisation) Nagendra and state ministers Prem Kumar, Krishna Kumar Rishi and Vinod Kumar Singh and MLAs Tarakeshwar Prasad and Vijay Khemka among others.
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