Film personalities, sports fraternity, industrialists, politicians as special guest
Chennai, Jan 22:
The Ram temple has been decorated with “rich stocks” of flowers and special lights and the entire city is drenched in religious fervour.
Streetlights on flyovers have been decorated with artwork depicting Lord Ram as well as cutouts of bow and arrow, and ornamental lampposts carry designs themed on the traditional “Ramanandi tilak”.
A multi-layer security cover is in place in Ayodhya for the consecration ceremony, with 10,000 CCTV cameras and drones equipped with artificial intelligence keeping an eye on the movement of people. Police personnel in plain clothes have been deployed at the venue.
Movable barriers with barbed wires attached to them can be spotted at every prominent crossroads in the temple town, as police use them to regulate traffic, especially during VVIP movements. Multiple NDRF teams trained to tackle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks, drowning incidents and disasters like earthquakes have also been deployed.
While more than 7,000 people are on the list of invitees for the event, the select list features 506 A-listers. Business tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani are among the prominent people invited to the event.
Those attending the “Pran Prathishtha” also include people linked to the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. Almost all opposition leaders invited to the ceremony have declined to be in attendance, with the Congress calling it a “BJP-RSS event”.
The consecration ceremony is being held after the first phase of the temple’s construction, made possible by a historic Supreme Court judgment in 2019 on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit. The Hindu litigants argued that the Babri Mosque was constructed at the site of a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram.
In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was demolished by “kar sevaks”.
