BJP leader Vinay Katiyar, one of the key leaders of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement in the 90s, has claimed he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the donation theft at the Ayodhya Ram temple, adding that key members of the shrine trust could be arrested soon.

“I am in contact with the PM. I have spoken to him over phone. He asked me what would happen now. I told him not to worry about anything, everything would be fine…. There could be some reason why Champat Rai, Anil Mishra and Gopal Rao are
safe at the moment. Maybe they will be sent to jail soon,” Katiyar, a former parliamentarian and founder of the Bajrang Dal, told reporters in Ayodhya.

Rai quit as the general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust earlier this week. Mishra has also resigned from the trust, while Rao is an unofficial administrator of the temple.

Katiyar is a former Rajya Sabha member and also represented Faizabad, of which Ayodhya is a part, in the Assembly. He was the local face of the BJP’s Ram temple movement, but was not included in the trust. Sources claimed that many BJP leaders and trust members had stopped taking his calls in recent years.

Sources said Katiyar was “extremely annoyed” with Rao, whom the trust had unofficially assigned to look after the day-to-day management of the temple.