President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday donated Rs 500,100 towards the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The temple is to come up at the same spot where the Babri Masjid stood before being razed by a Hindutva mob in 1992.

A delegation of Vishwa Hindu Parishad international working president Alok Kumar and Govind Dev Giri, treasurer of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust tasked with building the Ram temple, met the President to seek his blessings for a countrywide Sangh parivar donation drive that began on Friday to facilitate the construction.

Outside Rashtrapati Bhavan, the delegation members displayed the cheque signed by the President. “He is the First Citizen of the country, so we went to him to initiate the drive. He donated a sum of Rs 500,100,” Kumar told reporters.

There was no official communication from Rashtrapati Bhavan on the donation. Nor did the President’s official Twitter handle post any pictures of the meeting. Officials at Rashtrapati Bhavan said the President’s contribution was a personal one.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan handed over a cheque for Rs 1 lakh as his donation. “This is not only a Ram temple, it’s a national temple,” Chouhan said.