{"id":41872,"date":"2023-12-30T20:15:07","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T20:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/indian-town-adorned-with-flowers-for-temple-opening-preparations-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2023-12-30T20:15:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T20:15:07","slug":"indian-town-adorned-with-flowers-for-temple-opening-preparations-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/indian-town-adorned-with-flowers-for-temple-opening-preparations-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian town adorned with flowers for temple opening preparations | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nAYODHYA:
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Less than a month before a grand Hindu temple opens, India’s northern town of Ayodhya is buzzing with activity as finishing touches are put on a project seen as the centrepiece of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s re-election campaign.<\/p>\n

Once a sleepy temple town in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, Ayodhya has received a new airport and roads in a $6-billion facelift as Modi prepares to inaugurate the temple to Lord Ram, one of Hinduism’s most revered deities.<\/p>\n

A day before Modi was set to inaugurate the airport and a renovated train station, workers decorated the streets with flowers, amid a swarm of police.<\/p>\n

“Soon our Lord will be in his original place,” said Girish Sahastrabhojane, who worked on the design of the temple, which forms part of a sprawling 70-acre (28-hectare) complex of carved pink sandstone and white marble.<\/p>\n

“Our Lord Ram was born here and the Hindus of India, and also abroad, have been waiting for it since 1992,” the engineer involved in the construction told visiting reporters.<\/p>\n

But Modi’s opponents have accused him of stoking religious sentiment to further his political ambitions, and several opposition leaders have declined an invitation to attend the temple’s inauguration.<\/p>\n

Read also:\u00a0Some Muslims around major India temple fearful ahead of opening<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

On Jan. 22, Modi will pray for the first time before an idol of Lord Ram at the project, which cost more than 20 billion rupees ($240 million), and where more than 4,500 workers are labouring round the clock to complete the ground floor.<\/p>\n

Wearing hardhats and safety shoes, they worked on Friday to carve pillars and lift stones amid cranes towering over the site, which Sahastrabhojane said could accommodate 125,000 people in a day.<\/p>\n

Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has long pledged completion of the temple as one of its core aims.<\/p>\n

He has made its construction an emotive issue in many speeches ahead of next year’s general elections, widely expected to secure him a third term.<\/p>\n

Nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people, most of them minority Muslims, broke out in 1992 after a Hindu mob razed the Babri mosque – where the temple will stand – saying it was built on the site of an earlier Hindu temple.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Supreme Court ordered that Hindus be allowed to build a temple there, ending years of litigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n