Alok Kumar, the international president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has said nobody had asked Champat Rai to resign from the post of general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust and called his move “brave”.
Kumar was responding to a question from the media whether he or the Prime Minister’s Office or the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s office had pressured Rai to quit in the aftermath of the Ram temple donation theft fiasco.
“It is wrong to say that Champat Rai had been pressured to leave his post. It was his own decision and I can say it is a brave move. He, and all of us, want a fair inquiry into the theft of money from the Ram temple. He didn’t want to be accused of influencing the probe. He wants the accused to be punished,” Kumar told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday.
“The police have questioned him and he is available for many more rounds of questioning,” Kumar added. Rai is the international vice-president of the VHP.
Social media had been abuzz with rumours that Rai was not willing to resign from the trust but his seniors in the VHP and certain top-ranking members of the central and Uttar Pradesh governments had asked him to do so.
Sources claimed Rai had said in his statement to the police he didn’t know that his driver, Ramashankar Yadav aka Tinu, was involved in the crime. Tinu is one of the eight accused employees of the Ram temple who have been arrested on the charge of stealing money and other valuables from the vault of the shrine.
“I didn’t know that he was backstabbing me. He had worked for the Ram Temple Nyas before the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra was formed and I became its general secretary in 2020,” a source quoted Rai as telling the police. The Nyas is an erstwhile trust before the temple was built and inaugurated in 2024.
“I came to know about the theft in May-end and started an internal inquiry immediately. I informed the government and the police. Those involved in the theft were indirectly asked to stay away from the vault room without making them realise that we knew about their activities. Taking further action against them was out of my jurisdiction,” the source quoted Rai as having told the police two days ago.
Congress protest
A large number of Congressmen who had assembled in Ayodhya on Tuesday to organise a protest against the BJP government were put under house arrest. Later, the police detained around 100 Congress activists who were protesting near the Ram temple. Among those allegedly under house arrest is Ajay Rai, the Uttar Pradesh president of the Congress.