Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Wednesday was invited to attend the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha Event which is scheduled to take place in Ayodhya on January 22. Yadav declined the invitation stating that he will not be attending the ceremony.

While interacting with the media over the seat sharing of the INDIA bloc, the RJD supremo said that seat sharing will take time and also mentioned that he will not go to Ayodhya to attend the consecration event.

“Seat sharing does not happen so quickly in an alliance…. I will not go to Ayodhya to attend the pran pratishtha ceremony of the Ram Temple,” said Lalu Yadav in his response to the media.

Lalu Yadav’s statement comes hours after Sharad Pawar declined the invite of the mega event. The NCP supremo wrote a letter to the General Secretary of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Champat Rai stating that he will skip to attend the ceremony on Jan 22. He also took a veiled dig at the centre stating that he’ll be visiting the temple after the construction work is completed.

The letter written by the NCP chief reads, “After the pran pratistha ceremony is completed on January 22, I will freely take out time and come for darshan and by then the construction work of Ram temple will also be completed.”

Other Leaders Who Declined Invite Recently

Earlier this month, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav turned down the invitation to the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Akhilesh did say that he will visit the temple with his family at a later date.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and a host of Congress bigwigs — national president Mallikarjun Kharge, former president Sonia Gandhi and the party’s Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury–have already turned down the invitation to the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ ceremony.

The ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of Shri Ram Lalla at Ayodhya’s historic Ram Temple will be held on January 22.

Vedic rituals for the Pran-Pratishtha ceremony of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya began on Tuesday, a week before the main ceremony. The general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, Champat Rai, said the Ram temple will be open for ‘darshan’ for the general public from January 23.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started an 11-day special ritual in the run-up to the Pran Pratishtha of Shri Ramlala at the temple at Ayodhya.