Stressing that the ruling BJP has not gone back on the Ram Temple issue, Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Hansraj Gangaram Ahir today said the temple would come up in Ayodhya and ‘it will be built through other means’.

“The BJP government has not gone back on the Ram Temple issue. Though it is not in our manifesto but it is the matter of our honour and dignity,” Ahir told reporters while he was attending an event at Duha Bihra village in Ballia.

“The sadhus and mahants are doing their work in this regard. Hindu and Muslim leaders are also meeting the Government,” he said, adding, “It is decided that whenever it happens it will be temple which will be built in Ayodhya and not Masjid.”

It wasn’t long ago Prime Minister Modi, while replying to the discussion in the Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks to President Pranab Mukherjee’s address, declared that as the Prime Minister, it was his ‘responsibility’ not to allow “anaap shanap (ridiculous) comments in the name of religion. PM Modi had further added:

“Nobody has the right to discriminate on the basis of religion. My Government’s only religion is ‘India first’, my Government’s only religious book is the ‘Indian Constitution’, our only devotion is Bharat Bhakti and our only prayer is ‘welfare of all.”