Assembly election: Ayodhya has come to the centre-stage once again

Lucknow: Ayodhya seems to have come back to the centre stage, largely because of assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Major political players, the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janta Party, have planned or launched some project or the other there to keep the Ram temple town in focus and temple issue alive.

The third major political party in the state, the Bahujan Samaj Party, is not playing the religious card. It is still according top priority to party rallies in different parts of the state and dalit vote-bank. Since it may not be enough the party is trying to woo some upper castes particularly Brahmin.

It is a different story for the other two contestants. Both depend on consolidation of community votes and not caste. While the BJP would like consolidation of Hindu votes, the SP Muslim. This has helped these parties in the past and may help again. At least this is what they seem to hope.

Making use of its present position the party has launched a number of schemes in the town including a theme park of international standard. Hundreds of crores will be invested in the town which may benefit the people in the area.

The place is more significant for the BJP. So, it is setting up a Ramayan museum in the town. The party government at the Centre is taking care to see that the project is completed on time and that all hurdles are removed . A senior minister visited the site on Monday to see for himself the arrangements made in this connection.