Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated projects worth 111 billion rupees (US$1.3 billion) in the northern riverside town of Ayodhya, ahead of the opening of a long-anticipated and controversial temple in January.
Hundreds braved a winter morning to line up along roads in the city as Modi began a tour in a Toyota SUV, waving at crowds that showered him with rose petals and chanted slogans. The projects he unveiled included a new airport and a revamped railway station.
Ayodhya is widely believed by Hindu devotees to be the birthplace of the god Ram. The temple was built after a decades-old movement that involved the destruction of a mosque that had stood in its place, and a bitter court battle. In 2019, The Supreme Court of India ruled construction could go ahead.
The city has undergone a facelift in recent years as authorities widened roads and built bridges and highways ahead of an anticipated influx of Hindu pilgrims. The airport, with a facade that mirrors temple architecture, was also developed with the expectation of increased tourism.
The grand opening of the temple is scheduled for Jan 22, with a high-profile guest list that includes the prime minister. It will come just months before the country holds a general election, and is expected to boost the chances of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party as they fulfill one of their main poll promises.
Modi has made the construction of the temple an emotive issue in many speeches ahead of the elections, in which he is widely expected to secure a third term.
“After the construction of Ram temple, there will be a massive surge in people coming to Ayodhya,” Modi said at an event after inaugurating various projects on Saturday. “Keeping that in mind, our government is spending billions in infrastructure projects.”
Phase one of the airport development costs 14.5 billion rupees and it can serve about 1 million passengers annually. When fully upgraded, the aim is to handle 6 million passengers a year.
A day before Modi arrived, workers decorated the streets with flowers, amid a swarm of police.
“Soon our Lord will be in his original place,” said Girish Sahastrabhojane, who worked on the design of the temple, which forms part of a sprawling 70-acre complex of carved pink sandstone and white marble.
“Our Lord Ram was born here and the Hindus of India, and also abroad, have been waiting for it since 1992,” the engineer told visiting reporters.
But Modi’s opponents have accused him of stoking religious sentiment to further his political ambitions, and several opposition leaders have declined an invitation to attend the temple’s inauguration.
More than 4,500 workers have been labouring around the clock to complete the ground floor of the $240-million temple.
Wearing hardhats and safety shoes, they worked on Friday to carve pillars and lift stones amid cranes towering over the site, which Sahastrabhojane said could accommodate 125,000 people in a day.
Nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people, most of them minority Muslims, broke out in 1992 after a Hindu mob razed the Babri mosque - where the temple will stand - saying it was built on the site of an earlier Hindu temple.
In 2019, the Supreme Court ordered that Hindus be allowed to build a temple there, ending years of litigation.
Devotees take pictures of temples illuminated with lights after evening prayers on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya, India on Friday night. (Photo: Reuters)
