Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has turned Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's planned visit to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya into a fresh political flashpoint, demanding that those who once opposed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement apologise to devotees and saints before entering the shrine.
The Chief Minister's remarks came on Saturday at the tenth edition of Deepotsav in Ayodhya, the annual festival marked by the lighting of thousands of earthen lamps on the banks of the Saryu. Hours earlier, the Samajwadi Party had announced that Akhilesh Yadav and his wife, Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav, would visit the Ram Temple and Hanumangarhi on December 12 to offer prayers, a visit that would be Akhilesh Yadav's first to the temple since its consecration in January 2024.
Addressing the gathering, Yogi Adityanath said Akhilesh Yadav was welcome to visit Ayodhya, but should first seek forgiveness from the devotees of Lord Ram. Without directly naming the Samajwadi Party chief, he said those who had once neglected and insulted Ayodhya, opened fire on the devotees of Lord Ram and subjected saints to lathi charge should come only after offering an apology.
Let them apologise to the devotees of Lord Ram, he said, let them apologise to the saints, and let them repent for their past actions.
"Those who bloodied Ayodhya are also remembering Ayodhya," the Chief Minister said, in remarks delivered in Hindi. "Let them come to Ayodhya, but they should seek forgiveness from Ram bhakts." He added that the Lord was very kind and would forgive everyone, and that the Lord did not take long to end the arrogance of power.
Pointing towards the audience, he said that given the history the devotees of Ram had created, no one would now dare to open fire on the devotees in Ayodhya.
The reference was to the police firing on kar sevaks, or volunteers, in Ayodhya in 1990, when they were attempting to reach the Babri Masjid at the height of the movement to build a Ram Temple at the site. A Samajwadi Party government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav's father, was in power in Uttar Pradesh at the time.
The then Chandra Shekhar government at the Centre put the toll from the firing at 15, while Mulayam Singh Yadav gave differing figures over the years and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindutva organisations have claimed more than 50 deaths. The Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, and the dispute over the land was eventually settled by the Supreme Court, which awarded the site to the Hindu side in its 2019 verdict.
The Chief Minister also used the occasion to speak about the transformation of Ayodhya itself, telling the gathering that an airport could never have been built in the city in the past, whereas today Ayodhya boasts an international airport named after Maharishi Valmiki.
The remark was part of a broader argument that the city, long neglected, had been remade under the present government, and that those who had once opposed the temple movement were now seeking to associate themselves with it.
The visit was announced by Samajwadi Party leader Pawan Pandey, who said Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav would offer prayers at the Ram Temple and Hanumangarhi, interact with saints and seek their blessings. Pandey has again been named the party's candidate from the Ayodhya seat for the Assembly elections due by February 2027. Akhilesh Yadav was in Ayodhya on October 8 to attend a Bhagwat Katha organised by Pandey, but did not visit the temple on that occasion.
Akhilesh Yadav has not yet visited the temple, giving various reasons, including that he would visit only after the Kedareshwar Dham temple in the Samajwadi Party's home turf of Etawah was completed. That temple is now reportedly almost finished. The December 12 visit, if it goes ahead, will therefore mark his first trip to the shrine built around two years ago after decades of litigation over the land where the Babri Masjid once stood.
The Samajwadi Party chief hit back later on Saturday, referring to the recent controversy over the theft of donations at the Ram Temple. In a post on X in Hindi, he said the people of Ayodhya were asking the Chief Minister when the truth would be separated from fiction in the theft of donations, and whether it would be done at all. He said the main people behind the theft were still not arrested.
The exchange added a second layer to the confrontation, with each side accusing the other of failing to answer questions about the temple and its management.
Other leaders of the ruling party joined the attack. Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Pankaj Chaudhary said Akhilesh Yadav went to offer prayers when he saw an opportunity and should refrain from constantly insulting Sanatan Dharma. Minister Danish Azad Ansari said the Samajwadi Party was raising Ayodhya with an agenda of misleading the public as elections approached.
The row comes against the backdrop of the Assembly elections scheduled for early 2027, and it follows a month-long exchange between the two leaders over who should contest from Ayodhya itself. On October 8, during his visit to the temple town, Akhilesh Yadav dared Yogi Adityanath to contest the election from Ayodhya. The Chief Minister responded at a rally in Balrampur on October 10, saying: "Akhilesh ji, I make you an offer. Come, you file your nomination, and so will I."
Akhilesh Yadav has since announced that he will not contest the Assembly polls and will concentrate on campaigning across the state.
Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly accused the BJP of fanning communalism, though he has said the Ayodhya dispute as such stood settled after the Supreme Court's 2019 verdict. He was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh before Yogi Adityanath succeeded him in 2017, when the BJP took power in the state, and the rivalry between the two has shaped the state's politics ever since.
The December 12 visit has therefore taken on a significance beyond a private act of worship. For the Samajwadi Party, it is an attempt to show that its leader is willing to engage with a shrine that has become central to the state's political and cultural life, and to do so on his own terms.
For the Chief Minister and the BJP, it is an opportunity to remind voters of the 1990 firing and to frame the visit as a late acknowledgement of a history the Samajwadi Party would rather forget. The demand for an apology, made at Deepotsav before a large gathering in Ayodhya itself, was designed to ensure that the visit, when it happens, will be discussed on the Chief Minister's terms as much as on the visitor's.
Whether Akhilesh Yadav responds to the demand, ignores it, or turns it back on the government, as he began to do with his remarks about the donation theft, will shape the argument in the weeks ahead.
What is already clear is that Ayodhya, which has been at the centre of Uttar Pradesh politics for more than three decades, will remain at the centre of the campaign for the 2027 Assembly elections, and that the temple, the 1990 firing and the question of who speaks for the devotees of Lord Ram will all be part of that contest.
(Reporting based on NDTV and Oneindia.)