Amit Shah on Thursday virtually flagged off the BJP’s campaign for the 2024 general election from the Northeast, pitching the Ram Mandir as the prime plank and Rahul Gandhi as the principal opponent.
“Rahul baba, kaan khol kar sun lo, Sabroom wala, aap bhi ticket karwa lo. January 1, 2024, ko Ayodhya mein gagan chumbi Ram Mandir aap ko tayyar milega (Rahul baba, listen carefully. People of Sabroom, you also buy your tickets. On January 1, 2024, you will get a completed and sky-scraping Ram Mandir),” the Union home minister told a rally at Sabroom in Tripura. Sabroom is a town in South Tripura district.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which was in Uttar Pradesh till Thursday evening, appeared to be weighing on Shah’s mind. On Wednesday, Mahant Satyendra Das, chief priest of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, had written a letter to Rahul Gandhi, supporting the Yatra and blessing him.
Shah’s temple thrust suggests the BJP is planning to fall back on pet themes regardless of its claims of achievements on the development front.
He addressed rallies in the BJP-governed Tripura to launch the party’s campaign for the Assembly polls scheduled this year but the second meeting became the virtual launch pad for the run for the general election next year.
The home minister brought up the temple by referring to a taunt he attributed to Rahul.
Addressing his second well-attended Jan Vishwas Yatra of the day at Sabroom, Shah said: “Mitron, I have come to say one thing. When I was party president during the 2019 election, Rahul baba was the president of the Congress. Rahul baba used to say every day ‘they will build the temple there but will not reveal the date’.”
Shah then announced the date of the completion of the Ram temple.
The home minister did urge the people of Tripura to give the ruling BJP another five years to “continue the ongoing journey to build a developed Tripura”.
But Shah could not resist pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the construction of the temple soon after the Supreme Court verdict that allowed the construction of the shrine on the disputed land.
