New Delhi/Chennai, Jan 22: The BJP vs ruling DMK battle over live telecast of the Ayodhya Ram temple consecration in Tamil Nadu shrines reached the Supreme Court on Monday, with the apex court asking the authorities to act in accordance with the law and not based on any oral instructions.
In the Madras High Court, the state government submitted no permission was needed for related functions in private enclosures. While the HC held Bhakti towards God is only for peace and happiness and not to disturb the social equilibrium, this was cited by Chief Minister M K Stalin as the court’s ‘censure’ of Saffron party people.
A war of words over ‘ban’ on live telecast and conducting other events like Bhajans and Annadhanam broke between the BJP leaders and Governor R N Ravi on the one side and Chief Minister Stalin and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department Minister PK Sekar Babu on the other side.
Governor Ravi alleged that priests and staff of a Shri Ram temple here, under the control of the state government, faced ‘repression’ while the entire country celebrated the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya. The CM slammed the Governor for his ‘repression’ remark and the BJP as well for ‘Ram temple politics.’
After the intervention of courts, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai, witnessed on large TV screens in temples, the Ayodhya Sri Ram mandir Pran Pratishtha.
A Supreme Court bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, while hearing a plea seeking quashing of an “oral order” dated January 20 banning live telecast of the consecration ceremony at Ayodhya in temples across Tamil Nadu, said no one is bound to abide by the oral orders.
Both Sitharaman and Annamalai had alleged on Sunday that public screening of Ayodhya event and related programmes like Bhajan was barred by authorities in the state.
The Saffron party alleged the DMK regime is ‘anti-Hindu’ and people would teach a fitting lesson to the ruling party in the Lok Sabha polls.
Chief Minister Stalin said those who sought nod for ‘bhajan’ in Kancheepuram Kamakshi temple had mentioned that they would not hold any live telecast and this information was concealed by Sitharaman. No person in the BJP, right from Delhi to Tamil Nadu is an exception to spreading rumours, he alleged.
He hit out at the Govenror for “searching the BJP’s Ayodhya Ram temple politics in the peaceful Kothandaramar temple.” Ravi’s Chennai temple visit was an act of deception, he alleged. (PTI)
