New Delhi: BJP stalwart Lal Krishna Advani, who spearheaded the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement, has decided to attend the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) president Alok Kumar said on Thursday.


Earlier, there was uncertainty about his presence at the event after the Ram Temple Trust had last month said that both Advani and party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi were unlikely to attend the consecration ceremony due to their health and age.


Advani, along with Joshi, are founding members of the BJP and both were at the forefront of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the 1980s and early 1990s.


As Rai's statement kicked off a controversy, VHP working president Kumar said in a statement the next day that he had invited Advani and Joshi to attend the consecration ceremony.






"Advani ji has said that he will come. If required, we will make special arrangements for him," Kumar told PTI.


However, it remains unclear whether Joshi will attend the ceremony or not. "He has said that he will try to come to attend the event," Kumar said.
















In the 1990s, LK Advani led the controversial 'Rath Yatra' that originated from Somnath in Gujarat and was intended to reach Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. However, the procession faced obstacles as communal violence erupted in different parts of the country.


The yatra was ultimately brought to a stop in Bihar by the then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who arrested Advani to prevent further communal tensions.


Meanwhile, top Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Wednesday "respectfully declined" the invitation to attend the consecration ceremony, with the party accusing the BJP of making it into a "political project" for electoral gains and asserting that religion is a "personal matter".














Reacting to Congress's move, Kumar told PTI, "It's their wish." "Everyone has been invited. As we invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we also invited opposition leaders. We invited BJP president J P Nadda, so we invited presidents of all other parties. We believe that the occasion is a festival for all Hindus," the VHP leader said.


"Those who want to attend the consecration ceremony can come. Those who do not want to attend the event, it's their wish," he added.


In 2019, the Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict, settling a temple-mosque dispute that dated back more than a century. The court backed the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya and ruled that an alternative five-acre plot must be found for building a mosque.