Ayodhya Cheers As Amit Shah Says ‘Sky Touching Ram Temple’ Construction Will Begin With In Four Months

Ayodhya cheered on Monday (16 December) as Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in Jharkhand that work on a grand Ram temple "touching the sky" will begin within four months.

"The Supreme Court has given its verdict. Now within four months, a temple of Lord Ram touching the sky will come up in Ayodhya," Amit Shah said at a rally in Pakur in Jharkhand.

Amit Shah also accused the Congress of trying to block the Ram temple by stalling the case in courts. The Congress, he said, could "neither keep the country safe, nor could it respect the emotions of its citizen".

"Should there not be a grand temple for Lord Ram in Ayodhya," he asked during the rally, drawing a resounding "yes" from his audience.

In Ayodhya, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, chief of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, said, "There can be nothing joyful for us than this. We are happy that a time-frame has been set for the temple construction."

Other saints and seers had already said earlier that the construction of Ram temple would formally begin from Ram Navratri in April next year, about four months from now.

In its verdict on 9 November, the Supreme Court handed the 2.77 acre land for a Ram temple and ordered that five acres of land at a prominent site be assigned for a mosque, thus bringing to an end the decades-old dispute.

The court gave the government three months' time to set up a trust for the temple construction.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)