Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust's general secretary Champat Rai on Tuesday said that the donations would be sought from everyone in the country for the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya and even Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be approached.
Speaking to reporters, Rai said under a dedicated campaign starting January 15, 2021, the VHP workers will visit more than five lakh villages and about 12 crore 25 lakh houses in the country.
He said residents in 16,000 villages of Prayagraj, Mirzapur, Robertsganj, Pratapgarh, Varanasi, Chandauli, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Amethi, Kaushambi, and Sultanpur of Kashi kshetra will be approached for donations during this campaign.
Asked if the VHP workers would also go to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to seek his support, Rai said, "We have not drawn any dividing line for our workers. We will go to everyone." Champat Rai, also the national vice-president of the VHP, said, "We have told our workers that even if a person from a Muslim society says he also wants to contribute, we will take his support with respect."
About the VHP's drive to involve larger participation in the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya, Champat Rai said this would be the largest public relations campaign in the world. He said that this would a purely social public relations campaign and no government machinery would be used in it.
VHP is an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
On August 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had performed the 'bhoomi pujan' of a Supreme Court-mandated Ram temple in Ayodhya, bringing to fruition the BJP's 'mandir' movement that defined its politics for three decades and took it to the pinnacle of power.
On November 9, 2019, the SC settled the fractious issue going back more than a century and backed the construction of a Ram temple by a trust at the disputed site. It also ruled that an alternative five-acre plot must be found for a mosque in the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya.
(Inputs from PTI and ANI)