‘Cong deteriorating because….’: Ram Temple head priest on ‘Shakti’ row

A day after Rahul Gandhi’s controversial ‘Shakti’ statement, Acharya Satyendra Das, head priest at the Ayodhya Ram Temple, on Monday remarked that the Congress’s present state was because of comments like the one made by the party’s former national president.
“This is the reason why the party’s condition is deteriorating. It is an anti-Hindu party…Bharat (India) is a Hindu-majority state. If they make such comments, who is going to stand with them?” Acharya Das said.
He also demanded that Rahul Gandhi be ‘arrested.’
“Nari Shakti (women power) is a pride of Hindu Dharma, Sanatan Dharma. The leader who speaks against our Gods and Goddesses must be sent to jail,” the head priest added.
On Sunday, a day after the culmination of his 63-day-long ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,’ which he undertook from Manipur to Mumbai, Gandhi addressed a rally at Shivaji Park in the nation’s financial capital. The event also marked the first joint rally of the opposition INDIA front, which will take on prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
There, the Wayanad MP made the following remark: “There is a word ‘Shakti’ (might) in Hinduism. We are fighting against a Shakti (might of the state). The question is, what is that Shakti and what does it entail for us? The soul and integrity of EVMs have been traded to the King (PM Modi). This is a fact. Not just EVMs but every autonomous institution have traded its spine to the Centre.”
As the phrase ‘Shakti’ is associated with Goddess Durga, the Congress leader’s remark immediately stoked a controversy.
Addressing an election rally in Telangana’s Jagtial on Monday, PM Modi too responded, saying that for him, ‘every mother, daughter and sister is a form of shakti’.
(With ANI inputs)