The good news for Ram bhakts is that the guest list has been expanded from 200 to 600 for the August 5 bhoomi pujan in Ayodhya where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to lay the foundation stone for the Ram temple.
The bad news is that an uninvited guest — the novel coronavirus — is lurking over the venue where, apart from the Prime Minister, a large number of political heavyweights and business leaders will be present.
A priest of the makeshift Ram temple and 14 security personnel posted at the complex where the Babri Masjid stood tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday.
The infected priest is Mahant Pradeep Das. Mahant Satyendra Das, chief priest of the temple since 1992, and the remaining three priests have tested negative.
Pradeep Das was seen standing close to Yogi Adityanath when the chief minister visited the temple on July 25 and inspected the programme venue. Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and his wife Raj Kumari later paid a visit on July 28.
Both Adityanath and Maurya are on the August 5 guest list.
“Pradeep Das testing positive is a serious matter,” Satyendra told local reporters.
“What’s more alarming is that 14 members of the Provincial Armed Constabulary guarding the complex are infected too. Pradeep Das is in home isolation. I’m told the security personnel have been sent to an isolation centre.”
A local health department official, asking not to be identified, said that samples had been collected on Tuesday from all the five Ram temple priests, the temple cleaners and the 200 security personnel at the complex, as a precaution ahead of the August 5 event. The results came on Thursday.
Kamal Nayan Das, disciple of Nritya Gopal Das who heads the trust that is overseeing the temple construction, made light of the test results.
“There’s no need to worry because the entire area is being sanitised. The infected priest is not among the 11 who will conduct the rituals on August 5,” he said.
Sources suggested 12 priests had initially been selected but Pradeep Das was dropped after he tested positive. Apart from Satyendra, 10 priests from elsewhere in Ayodhya and Varanasi will conduct the August 5 bhoomi pujan (site worship) rituals.
Initially, the trust members had decided on only 50 guests — VVIPs and priests — for the event, keeping in mind the social-distancing protocol. They later expanded it to 200 to accommodate senior politicians and industrialists.
Now, under pressure from sadhus and senior Sangh parivar functionaries the list has been lengthened to 600, a state bureaucrat told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.
“A few big industrialists were on the list but many who had been involved in the Ram temple movement since 1984 were ignored. It’s because of discontent over this among the sadhus and VHP members that we added 400 more guests,” he said.
“We had originally planned to raise a standard-size marquee. Now there will be two big marquees. A small platform will be built from where Modi, Adityanath and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will address the gathering.”
Champat Rai, who has been in charge of the VHP’s Ram temple chapter for the past two decades, had on Wednesday appealed to “those directly or indirectly associated with the temple movement since 1984 not to be impatient to reach Ayodhya”.
Citing the Covid-19 epidemic, Rai had in a WhatsApp message advised everyone to “watch live telecast of the function on Doordarshan and light lamps at your homes to welcome the great moment”.
The makeshift temple, which had stood on the disputed plot for decades, has been shifted to a nearby spot so that the ground can be levelled for temple construction.
