Amid demands by the Opposition for public accounting of the Ram temple donations and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the embezzlement issue, sources on Friday said a re-audit of the temple trust’s accounts will be conducted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).
As the Opposition parties continued with their attack, senior BJP leader and former MP Vinay Katiyar said he has spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, he added, “expressed concern" over the donations theft issue.
He also said former Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai, ex-trustee Anil Mishra and temple official Gopal Rao “may have escaped going to jail for now, but may still go later".
Sources said the SIT probing the alleged embezzlement will carry out a detailed scrutiny of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust’s financial records for an entire five-year period and the re-audit will cover construction-related expenditure as well as jewellery and other gold and silver items received as donations.
The RSS reacted for the first time to the alleged theft of funds, saying this has “deeply hurt" the faith of Ram devotees and all of society, and the SIT must ensure the guilty face severe punishment.
“We are all extremely pained and angered by this event," RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said in a statement on X.
Asserting that “anti-Hindu and anti-national forces" are seeking to malign Hindu dharma by exploiting the “unfortunate incident", Hosabale called on all Hindus to display necessary patience and restraint to thwart such “conspiracies".
The Congress was quick to react, saying the “clean chit" given by the RSS is “disgraceful and shameful" and a desperate damage control aimed at sanitising it.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh dubbed the RSS as a “fraudulent outfit", while the opposition party’s media and publicity head, Pawan Khera, said the organisation is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing".
“The clean chit given by the RSS is disgraceful and shameful. The fact is ‘chanda chori’ on a large scale by people very much part of its network has taken place. It is a fraudulent outfit," Ramesh said in a post on X.
Khera tagged the video statement of Hosabale on X and said it is “designed to protect the crocodiles while sacrificing a few expendable pawns".
He said the truth is that if the RSS was sincerely committed to safeguarding devotees’ donations, “embezzlement" on such a scale would never have taken place at a temple that is directly under its own watch.
Talking to PTI, Katiyar said he had spoken to Modi but did not divulge much about his conversation.
He only said Modi expressed concern over the theft issue and sought his views on what would happen next.
“I told him everything would be fine," Katiyar said.
Alleging financial irregularities in the functioning of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi trust, Katiyar claimed Rai, Mishra and Rao could face imprisonment in the future if found guilty.
“It is possible that in the coming days Champat Rai, Gopal Rao and Anil Mishra may have to go to jail," he said, adding that anyone found responsible for this should be sent to jail.
