Ram temple construction very much on BJP agenda: Amit Shah

Lucknow: BJP National President Amit Shah on Monday said a grand Ram temple will be constructed at Ayodhya, and the way for this will be either through talks, mutual settlement or through a court verdict. Addressing the media on the last day of his three-day visit to the Uttar Pradesh state capital, Shah said that construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya was very much part of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) agenda. He praised the working of the Yogi Adityanath government in the state and said that within three months of its advent, a semblance of governance had come in the state and people were noticing a perceptible change. "It is a coincidence that as I speak to you, three years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and three months of the Yogi Aditynath government in the state have been completed," the BJP chief said, praising the functioning of both the governments. Shah ridiculed the media speculation that senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal Singh, was hitching himself to the party bandwagon. Accompanied by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister and state BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, Shah also claimed that with his good governance, brave decisions and crackdown on black money, Modi had emerged as the most popular Prime Minister of India ever. Shah also tried to put an end to speculation about Maurya that he was being shifted to the Centre as a Union minister, saying that as soon as a state party chief was finalised, Maurya would devote full time to the state government. He also tried to trash the opposition charges that by dining at a Yadav worker's house on Sunday, he was picking on caste politics. "Sonu Yadav is a party booth worker, and just as I go to eat at any other place, I went to his house and had food... No politics should be read in this," he added. Shah also blamed the previous Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) governments in the state for the mess in Uttar Pradesh and said that they had collectively presided over scams to the tune of Rs 12 lakh crore. "There is not one finger raised at us as the government is working with transparency," he added. With regard to Panama Papers, the BJP chief said there were no names from his party in those leaks, and in any case, the Special Investigation Team was probing the Panama Papers leaks. Shah said that the Union government, apart from the funds allocated to Uttar Pradesh, had opened its coffers for the state to develop and prosper.