Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti has asked for her name to be dropped from the list of invitees to the August 5 Ram temple event in Ayodhya and said she was concerned about Prime Minister Narendra Modi ever since she heard that Union home minister Amit Shah had tested positive for Covid-19.

“I start from Bhopal today (Monday). Maybe I will meet an infected person before reaching Ayodhya tomorrow. In such a situation, I will stay away from the place where Narendra Modi and thousands of people will be present. And I will pay my obeisance to Ram Lalla after Narendra Modi and all the groups leave,” the former Union minister tweeted in Hindi on Monday morning.

“Ever since I heard about Amit Shahji and other BJP leaders of UP testing corona positive, I am worried about those people who would be present in the foundation stone-laying ceremony in Ayodhya, particularly about Narendra Modiji,” she wrote.

Shah was admitted to a hospital in Delhi on Sunday after he tested positive for coronavirus. Kamal Rani Varun, an Uttar Pradesh minister, died of the infection on Sunday. Another minister, Mahendra Singh, and state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh also tested positive.

Narendra Modi PTI

Two days ago, Ram temple priest Mahant Pradeep Das and 14 security personnel posted at the Ram Janmabhoomi complex where Modi will lay the foundation stone of the temple, had tested positive.

Das was seen standing beside Yogi Adityanath on July 25 when the Uttar Pradesh chief minister had visited the complex to review preparations for the event.

Uma, 61, further wrote: “I have given the information to the senior officers of Ram Janmbhoomi trust in Ayodhya and the Prime Minister’s Office to remove my name from the list of those groups who would be present there… I will be on the bank of the Saryu river during the foundation stone-laying ceremony.”

Uma was one of the leaders of the Ram temple movement in the 1980s and 1990s, when Modi was little-known in politics.