Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday unveiled a seven-foot rosewood statue of Ram at Ayodhya’s Tulsi Museum, dedicated to the poet Tulsidas, and later prayed at the makeshift temple on the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi site.
Museum director Y.P. Singh said the figure had been carved out of a single piece of wood in Karnataka and that the Uttar Pradesh government had bought it for Rs 35 lakh.
He said the statue was one of “Kodanda (Arrow) Rama, showing him with a bow and arrows”.
Adityanath had two years ago ordered the state tourism department to build a 221-metre bronze statue to Ram at Ayodhya which, when completed, would be the tallest statue in the world.
The state tourism department is acquiring land for the project and has issued notices to 222 people from whom 28 hectares are to be acquired on Ayodhya town’s fringes.
Friday’s unveiling was held to coincide with the 81st birthday of Nritya Gopal Das, chairperson of the Ram Janmabhomi Nyas, a wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Das is the oldest living leader of the VHP, of which Adityanath too is a member by virtue of being the head of the Gorakhnath temple.
Adityanath later attended Das’s birthday celebrations at the Maniram Chawani temple.
While the chief minister was in Ayodhya, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Union minister of state for rural development, arrived in Chitrakoot, 300km south of Lucknow. According to the Ramayan, Ram had spent a part of his 14-year exile in Chitrakoot.
Jyoti prayed at the Kamadgiri temple, dedicated to Ram, and later told reporters the Ram temple in Ayodhya would soon be a reality.