No invitation for Advani for Ayodhya event on August 5

NEW DELHI: Architect of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and its chief protagonist who led the first political rathyatra in the country for it, BJP veteran L K Advani has not been invited for the grand function at Ayodhya on August 5, to celebrate the ground-breaking ceremony for a Ram temple at the site.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending the programme.
Advani has not got any invitation from any quarters, till Saturday, with just four days to go for the function, according to sources close to the 92-year old leader who catapulted his party’s fortunes with the Ram rathyatra in 1990.
While there has not even been any informal word from any quarters in the party or the government about his participation in the function, Advani, in fact, sat through his final deposition on the Babri Mosque demolition case last week, through a video conferencing facility, and is awaiting a verdict by the Special CBI court by August 30 on it, following Supreme Court orders, along with other veteran leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharati among others. Joshi deposed before the CBI court on the case a day before Advani, last week.
Joshi, another prominent Ram Janmabhoomi activist in the party with Advani, has not received an invitation for the August 5 function at Ayodhya.
Advani, who was asked more than 1,000 questions over four-and-a-half hours, has denied all charges, according to his lawyer.
Home minister Amit Shah along with BJP general secretary Bhupinder Yadav had met Advani at his residence, the day before his scheduled deposition with the CBI court last week and “none of them had mentioned anything about the August 5 programme at Ayodhya,” it is learnt. The visit was seen as more of a “courtesy call to show solidarity” with the veteran leader before the deposition, according to sources. With the date for the programme having been decided more than a month ago, it is not expected that invitations for leaders like Advani or Joshi arrive at the last moment.
Also, with the Corona pandemic situation, the participation of senior leaders is only possible virtually, but, there is no such proposal either for such a participation to any of the two veteran leaders who were in the forefront of the ram Janmabhoomi movement.
BJP has not said anything on the issue so far.
The formal invitations over phone are being co-ordinated by Champat Rai, general secretary of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, that was set up by the Supreme Court after its verdict last November.