Ayodhya: Amit Shah, the BJP's Uttar Pradesh in-charge for the 2014 general elections, visited Ayodhya today. While he refused to comment on the controversial Ishrat Jahan encounter case, Mr Shah did not shy away from invoking the controversial Ram temple issue.
"I have prayed that we build a grand Ram temple here together as soon as possible and restore Lord Ram to his rightful place," Mr Shah said after visiting the make-shift Ram Lalla temple.
"After worshiping here I have prayed that good governance is established in the country and the nation gets rid of the Congress," Mr Shah said.
After Mr Shah's remark, the Congress immediately stepped up its attack on the BJP. "They don't have anything to do with the Ram nor the temple," Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said.
Last month, Mr Shah, a close confidante of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, was made in-charge of Uttar Pradesh for next year's elections. Mr Modi is leading the party's election campaign.
Under Mr Modi, the BJP is seeking to recapture its old base in Uttar Pradesh. The state has 80 Lok Sabha constituencies, and a good performance here will be crucial for all the parties.
Mr Modi kicked off his campaign for 2014 through a teleconference with 1,500 party leaders and workers from Bihar, where the BJP was dumped by Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United or JDU. The JDU broke the 17-year-old alliance after Mr Modi's elevation. Mr Kumar, without naming him, has said Mr Modi is a 'divisive' leader. Nearly a thousand Muslims were killed under Mr Modi's watch in the Gujarat riots in 2002.
Earlier this week, the CBI filed its chargesheet in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case, in which a 19-year-old girl and three of her associates were killed by the Gujarat Police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Neither Mr Modi and nor Mr Shah, who was then the state's Home Minister, have been named in the chargesheet; though a testimony by a former police officer says both had signed off on the shootout.