The BJP on Thursday put out a poster on its social media handle with pictures of several Opposition politicians and urged people to “note down the faces” of those who
have declined the invitation to the January 22 consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

It accused the Congress of adhering to Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy of not attending the inauguration of the Somnath temple.

“This is not Mahatma Gandhi’s but Nehru’s Congress. Gandhi’s political philosophy was Ram Rajya… but the Congress is not in its favour,” BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said.

He accused the Congress of being opposed to “Indian culture, Hindu religion and Hindutva”.

The BJP has launched an all-out attack on the Congress since Wednesday, when the main Opposition party announced it would not attend the January 22 consecration, calling it an RSS-BJP event. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to be the main host at the ceremony.

The poster on the BJP’s X handle is titled: “Note down the faces of the opponents of Sanatan who rejected the invitation to the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony.”

The poster carried images of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party president Sonia Gandhi and the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Chowdhury, apart from Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.

Trivedi, fielded at the party headquarters a day after Union ministers had ripped into the Congress decision, targeted the Nehru-Gandhi family, in particular.

He recalled how Nehru, the country’s first Prime Minister, had declined to attend the opening of the refurbished Somnath temple (in 1951), and said the Congress was following the same tradition even today.

“Indira Gandhi had fired on saints protesting against cow slaughter. When its (Congress) president was Sonia Gandhi, Lord Ram was described as an imaginary figure and now comes the decision to boycott the consecration of the Ram temple,” he said.

“Because of its feelings of jealousy and malice towards Prime Minister Modi, the Congress had gone to the extent of opposing the country and is now opposing God.”

Trivedi wondered whether the Congress still stood by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s pledge to rebuild the Babri Masjid after its demolition in Ayodhya.

He claimed the Ram temple “symbolises the highest values of Indian traditions and culture” and contrasted the Congress’s position with that of a Muslim litigant in the Ayodhya land title case.

“Reflecting Hinduism’s generosity, the Muslim litigant in the case, Iqbal Ansari, has also been invited to the Pran Pratistha and he has accepted it, but the Congress has chosen to boycott the ceremony,” Trivedi said, accusing the Congress and its allies of “extremist politics”.

Told that the Congress had declined the invitation on the ground that the BJP and the RSS had appropriated the event for their political project, Trivedi denied this. He accused the Congress of looking for an excuse to stay away from the consecration.

He claimed the event was being organised by the temple trust and, therefore, linking it with any other organisation was wrong.

“Whenever the page of history has turned, the Congress has, instead of standing with it, opted to boycott it,” Trivedi said.

He cited a host of events the Congress had stayed away from, including the inauguration of the new Parliament building, enactment of the GST, and some of the presidential addresses to Parliament by Ram Nath Kovind and Droupadi Murmu.