1st Ram Temple Trust meet on Feb 19; temple design yet to be fixed: Kameshwar Chaupal

In an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat, Kameshwar Chaupal, a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader from Bihar, who was recently appointed to the 15-member Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust constituted for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, said that the Trust would hold its first meeting on February 19 in Delhi and start working on the design of a grand Ram temple.

Bihar/Uttar Pradesh: Kameshwar Chaupal, a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader from Bihar, who was recently appointed to the 15-member Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust constituted for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, said that the Trust would hold its first meeting on February 19 in Delhi and start working on the design of a grand Ram temple.

"The first meeting of the Trust will be held on February 19. We are yet to decide on the final design of the grand temple. Around 30 years ago a few sages including Ashok Singhal (international working president of the Hindu organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad) imagined the temple in a certain way. But as decades passed people want a grand temple to be built. The trust will ultimately decide on the design of the temple," Chaupal told ETV Bharat who is the only member from the Dalit community to find representation in the Trust.

Expressing his happiness over the Supreme Court's decision in favour of them, Chaupal said that this is an opportunity to establish a "Ram Rajya" often advocated by Mahatma Gandhi.

"Today the people of the country are very happy as their wish for a grand temple to be built at the site of the birthplace of Lord Ram is being fulfilled. This is also an opportunity to fulfil the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi who always spoke about Ram Rajya. There can be no better time than this, " Chaupal said.

With several sages and priests associated with the decades-long campaign for the construction of a Ram temple expressing dissatisfaction over exclusion from the Trust, particularly Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas president Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Chaupal said, "Nritya Gopal Das is not upset. He has dedicated his entire life to Lord Ram, then why would he be upset over the construction of a Ram temple. The sages are probably overwhelmed with the construction of the temple. But now they are willing to give us their blessings and stand with us."

On Pravin Togadia's non-inclusion in the trust, who is the former International Working President of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Chaupal said, "Neither did I constitute the trust, nor did my organisation. The government was supposed to constitute the trust under the supervision of the Supreme Court, and that is what the government did. There are no second thoughts on the contributions made by Pravin Togadia in the struggle to build the temple."

The BJP leader added, "Crores of people worked towards achieving this target, what about those who sacrificed their lives over the issue? It is to fulfil their dreams that we are working towards building a grand Ram temple."

On the Babri Masjid Action Committee demanding that the debris of the mosque that was demolished in 1992 be provided to them so that they can use the same for the construction of a mosque, Chaupal shrugged off the possibility by saying that since there was no mosque there was no debris.

"There is no logic behind this demand. When there was no Babri mosque where will the debris come from? It has been proven and backed by the Supreme Court that there was a Ram temple at the disputed site which was demolished by Babur to build the so-called Babri masjid," said Chaupal who laid the foundation for the temple during 'shilanyas' in 1989.

When asked if he thinks that the dispute wouldn't have taken this long to resolve if the Muslim community would have accepted the existence of a Ram temple, Chaupal said, "Only a handful of Muslim leaders put up a fight, not the entire Muslim community, and I would like to thank them for this. The community at large wanted the dispute to come to an end. The leaders even appealed against the Supreme Court's decision, but they did not receive support from the community."

"The fact that the SC verdict was accepted so graciously is proof of the fact that the community wanted the matter to be resolved, " added Chaupal.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 5 had announced in Lok Sabha the formation of the trust to construct a Ram temple in Ayodhya as directed by the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in November last year.

Senior lawyer K Parasaran has been named the head of the trust and its other members include Jagatguru Shankracharya, Jyothishpeethadheeshwar Swami Vasudevanand Saraswati Ji Maharaj from Allahabad, Jagatguru Madhavacharya Swami Vishwa Prasannatheerth Ji Maharaj, Pejawar Math in Udupi, Yugpurush Paramanand Ji Maharaj from Haridwar, Swami Govinddev Giri Ji Maharaj from Pune and Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra from Ayodhya.

Two prominent people who shall be practising Hindus will be nominated by the board of trustees with a majority resolution.