Suranya Aiyar stated that she did not live in the colony represented by the RWA. (FILE)
Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's daughter Suranya Aiyar, who was asked to vacate "their" house in south-east Delhi over her Ram Temple post, has said that she doesn't even live there. "The relevant Residents' Welfare Association is from a colony where I do not live!" she said in a Facebook video.
A residents' welfare association in Jangpura, in a letter, asked Mr Aiyar and her daughter to leave the colony. In the letter, the RWA president said the association was approached by residents of the colony over her social media "stand/rant" against the consecration ceremony.
The RWA accused Suranya of "hate speech" and requested her to follow the norms of a good citizen. It claimed the colony was inhabited by residents who came to India from Pakistan after partition.
The controversy erupted when the 49-year-old, in a Facebook post on January 20, had claimed that she was fasting in protest against the 'pran pratishtha' ceremony of the Ram Mandir. She said it was an expression of love and sorrow for fellow Muslim citizens.
"What Ms Aiyar said through social media was unbecoming of an educated person, who should have understood that the Ram Mandir was being built after 500 years and that too after 5-0 Supreme Court verdict," the RWA responded.
After the RWA notice, she said the reasons for her disagreement were expressed by her in a previous speech (video): "I made a spiritual presentation of my own pain about this by fasting peacefully in my home".
"What matters is that whatever point of view we put forward, whether people can see some sense in it. And if at the end of the day, at the end of this process, in India, we can even just find a more civilised, a more thinking and a more sincere way of talking and feeling about these things, then we would have achieved something (sic)," she said, stressing that she studied abroad and was involved with activism with people of all political background.
Reacting to the development, the BJP said the action of the RWA should serve as a message to everyone who believes abusing Hindu beliefs is "par for the course".
The RWA has "asked Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar and his daughter to apologise for defiling the Pran Pratistha ceremony at Ram Mandir, and leave the residential colony," BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said in a post on X.
Mani Shankar Aiyar is yet to comment on the row.
The 'pran pratishtha' or consecration ceremony of Ram Lalla - headlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi - was held at the newly built Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.