A status update on the still-under-construction Ram temple in Ayodhya was suddenly tossed into the middle of the general election on Sunday.

It came from the central government-appointed temple trust, at a time when political parties are bound by the Election Commission's Model Code of Conduct.

A member of the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust invited a few reporters and said the construction was progressing faster than expected, prompting the Congress to accuse the BJP of a "desperate attempt" to milk the shrine further for electoral gain.

Work on the first floor is complete and the number of workers has been increased, Anil Mishra, the trustee, said. "Our target is to complete the work of the second and last floor by November this year," he said. The trust had earlier set a 2025 deadline.

"Work to put up the columns of the second floor has started. The carving of figures of gods and goddesses on the pillars of the first floor is on at full speed. There were 40 sculptors but the number has been increased to 60."

Mishra's comments — which contained no reference to any party — come ahead of the third phase of polling on May 7, involving 94 seats of which 10 are in Uttar Pradesh.

They also coincide with an attempt by the BJP to play up divisive, religious planks, apparently borne out of worry that the first two phases may not have gone entirely its way.

"The BJP feels it has failed to milk the Ram temple issue properly. Perhaps it is trying to bring it to the centre of the election campaign," senior Congress leader Dwijendra Tripathi said.

Congress national spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh told The Telegraph that the attempt to shoehorn the temple into the electoral discourse would not help the BJP.

"People have lost trust in the BJP because of the Ram temple," he said.

He flagged how Prime Minister Narendra Modi had consecrated the temple on January 22 despite "Shankaracharyas and other sadhus" citing scripture to say an unfinished temple should not be consecrated.

“They are now talking about the first floor being ready because they want to milk it for political mileage in a crisis. The reduced voter turnouts (in the first two phases) are a clear indication that they are losing this time,” Singh, candidate from Deoria, said.

“People will get angrier with the BJP if it doesn’t stop misusing the temple. They are trying to misuse religion in instalments, but by doing that they are losing voters in instalments.”

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav too told a rally in Kannauj that the BJP was “desperate and is therefore misusing religion”.

“Their (BJP leaders’) language changed after they realised that their voters were uninterested in going to the booths. The party is banking on religion to divert attention from its lies,” he said.

Asked on Thursday why the BJP campaign was using religion, deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak had told this newspaper: “We constructed the Ram temple when the Congress and the Samajwadis were opposed to it. Nobody can deny this fact.”