Lucknow, Nov 7 (PTI) Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will visit the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on December 12, former SP MLA Pawan Pandey said on Saturday, an announcement set to spice up politics in the key Hindi heartland state ahead of Assembly polls in early 2027.
The ruling BJP has been targeting Yadav for not visiting the Ram Temple over "appeasement politics", while the SP chief has been vociferously raising the issue of "chanda chori" in the Ram Temple and blaming the BJP and Sangh outfits.
"Both Akhilesh ji and his wife Dimple Yadav ji will visit Ram Temple and also visit the Hanumangarhi temple at Ayodhya on December 12," Pandey, who has again been named SP candidate from Ayodhya, told media persons in Ayodhya.
The announcement comes as the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government focuses on organising grand Deepotsav celebrations in Ayodhya.
"The SP chief will, along with his family, visit Ayodhya, where, along with visiting temples including Hanumangarhi and Ram Temple, he will also interact with saints and seek their blessings," Pandey, who won the 2012 UP polls from Ayodhya during the SP wave, said.
Yadav's proposed visit is set to stir political discourse in the most populous state, and will be his first since the grand temple was inaugurated in January 2024. It is being interpreted as SP leadership experimenting with "soft Hindutva" in an apparent bid to counter the BJP, which has consistently reminded the masses about the police firing in Ayodhya on unarmed karsevaks in the 1990s, when the SP government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power.
Akhilesh has so far countered all queries about his Ram Temple visit, saying it would happen only after the Samajwadi Party-built Kedareshwar Dham in Etawah is completed.
