The Congress on Tuesday staged a protest in Dharamsala over the alleged irregularities in donations collected for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, demanding a high-level and impartial probe into the matter.
Led by Rajya Sabha MP and Kangra District Congress President Anurag Sharma, party leaders and workers marched through the town, raising slogans against the Centre and seeking action against those found responsible.
The protest began at the Dharamsala Post Office Chowk, where Congress workers gathered carrying placards and banners before taking out a rally to the Hanuman Temple. The demonstration witnessed the participation of senior Congress leaders, office-bearers and party workers from across Kangra district.
Addressing the gathering, Anurag Sharma alleged that the reported irregularities in Ram Temple donations were linked to the faith of millions of devotees across the country and therefore required complete transparency. He demanded an impartial and high-level investigation into the alleged scam so that the truth could come before the public.
After the rally, Congress workers offered prayers at the Hanuman Temple and collectively recited the Hanuman Chalisa as a mark of protest. Party leaders warned that if their demands were not addressed, they would continue their democratic agitation.
Among those present during the protest were Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Yadvinder Goma, MLAs Ashish Butail, Sanjay Rattan, Kewal Singh Pathania and Kishori Lal, besides former MP Viplove Thakur, chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of various boards and corporations, and a large number of Congress workers also attended the demonstration.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back at Congresss accusing the ruling party in Himachal Pradesh of attempting to divert public attention from governance failures.
Senior party leader and former minister Bikram Singh Thakur alleged that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and the Congress government were using the name of Lord Ram to distract people from the failure to fulfil the party's ten poll guarantees, the state's deteriorating financial condition, mounting debt and administrative shortcomings.
He said that if the Chief Minister was genuinely accountable to the people of Himachal Pradesh, he should release a white paper on the state's actual financial position instead of making statements on the Ram Temple issue.
Bikram Singh Thakur further said that the Congress had no moral authority to question Lord Ram or the Ram Temple, alleging that the party had opposed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for years, created hurdles in the judicial process and even questioned the existence of Lord Ram.
He claimed that the Congress was now trying to exploit the faith of millions of devotees for political gain and that the Chief Minister was invoking Lord Ram to conceal his government's failures.
The BJP leader also rejected the Congress' allegations on corruption, saying the party should first answer questions about several scams that surfaced during its rule, including the 2G spectrum, coal allocation, Commonwealth Games, Bofors, AgustaWestland, Adarsh Housing Society, National Herald and other cases. He alleged that the Congress' history was marked by corruption and misuse of power and questioned its credibility to lecture others on transparency and accountability.