Dejected and demoralised, Praveen Togadia, the international working president of VHP, on Monday tried to open a front against the Centre over the Ram Temple issue, demanding the Centre introduce a law in Parliament to pave the way for the temple before 2019.
Of late, Togadia has increasingly found himself on the fringe of Right wing politics and Monday's press conference seemed to be a desperate attempt to wriggle his way inside, once more. It has been widely rumoured that Togadia does not enjoy the trust of the current regime, which he further ascertained via his media interaction.
Trying to paint a picture suggestive of him championing the Hindutva cause, he claimed that he had been fighting incessantly with the Central leadership for the past four years to bring in a law for Ram temple construction. Togadia claimed that his efforts with the government had been a failure and that the Centre wanted to wait for the Apex Court verdict.
"I have been trying for four years and now time has come to tell the people about it," he said. Further insinuating that he was spilling the beans from his private and confidential conversations with the government, he added that the efforts of "five senior saints", too, had failed. "They were also not heard."
Togadia suggested that using the "pretext"of waiting for the SC verdict also meant "paving the way for a grand Babri mosque, even if the verdict went in favour of Hindus". He pointed at the Ayodhya Act or Acquisition of Certain Areas at Ayodhya Ordinance, 1993, and demanded they be scrapped immediately.
A visibly disturbed Togadia ultimately said, "Now I am called mad, outdated, and old fashioned."
