Sacked Congress leader claims Rahul Gandhi had planned to overturn Ram Mandir verdict if voted to power

NEW DELHI: Former Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam on Monday claimed that Rahul Gandhi had made plans to overturn the Supreme Court verdict which facilitated construction of grand Ram Mandir in Ayodhya if the grand old party formed a government at the Centre.

"I have spent more than 32 years in the Congress. When the Ram Mandir decision came, Rahul Gandhi in a meeting with his close aides had said that if the Congress formed a government after elections, a superpower commission would be created to overturn the Ram Mandir verdict just like Rajiv Gandhi had changed the SC ruling in the Shah Bano case," Pramod Krishnam told news agency ANI.

The former Congress leader further claimed that Rahul Gandhi had mooted this idea on the advice and signal of one of his well-wishers who lived in America. The reference was possibly to Indian Overseas Congress chairman Sam Pitroda. When preparations for the inauguration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya were on full swing, Pitroda had stirred a controversy by questioning the hype around the consecration ceremony and the Prime Minister's participation in the grand opening.

Pitroda had then said "I have no problem with any religion. I am only saying that don't mix religion with politics. Pandit Nehru, Lal bahadur Shashtri did not use religion for politics. It is okay to visit temple once in a while, but you can't make that the main platform. 40 per cent of the people vote for the BJP, 60 per cent of the people do not vote for the BJP. He is everybody's Prime Minister & not BJP's Prime Minister and that's the message people of India want the Prime Minister to give."

"The people of India will have to decide what are the real issues - is Ram Mandir the real issue? Or unemployment is a real issue. Is Ram Mandir the real issue or is inflation a real issue. Is Ram Mandir the real issue or is the air pollution in Delhi the real issue?" he had added.

Congress expelled Acharya Pramod Krishnam from party for “indiscipline and anti-party activities” days after he criticised party leadership for skipping Ram Lalla’s consecration ceremony in Ayodhya and termed the decision as “anti-Hindu”.

On the Congress decision to field Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli, the former Congress leader had said that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was deliberately denied a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections and she was a "victim of family and party conspiracy".

"I said this earlier that Rahul Gandhi will not contest Amethi. I said this, too, that Rahul Gandhi will not let Priyanka Gandhi Vadra fight these elections. There is a big conspiracy afoot against Priyanka. She is the victim of a conspiracy hatched by her family and the party," Acharya Krishnam had told ANI on Friday.

The Congress had boycotted the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22. The grand old party called the temple inauguration a BJP-RSS event. "Religion is a personal matter but the RSS and the BJP have made Ayodhya temple a political project," the party had said in a statement.

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