Faizabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party's star campaigner was in Faizabad on Sunday. But just outside Ayodhya, Narendra Modi avoided temple talk, focusing instead on development and terror. Is the party abandoning Ram?
In these polls, the BJP will not raise political dust over the Ram temple. The BJP's Hindutva mascot, speaking barely 10 km from Ayodhya's disputed site, didn't say a word about the Ram temple. But he did make several references to Ram.
Development and terror were the focus of Modi's speech. He boasted of the development in Gujarat, and mocked the UPA over its response to 26/11.
He knows the Ram temple has stopped getting votes, even near the epicentre of the movement, Faizabad, where political disruptions have meant no development in the past two decades.
In fact, the one time stringent Hindutva leader Vinay Katiyar has had to flee Faizabad, and contest this time from adjoining Ambedkar Nagar.
The BJP cannot abandon Ram - for that there is Modi - now Varun Gandhi. Otherwise the BJP is not ready to be weighed down by baggage of the past. It benefitted from the backyard of mythology. Now it's chasing the frontier of real politics.