BJP's aim is not to spread sanatan dharma: Dwarka Shankaracharya

Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati of Dwarka peeth Thursday said the BJP's aim is not to propagate the 'sanatan dharma', but to mine the votes of those who follow it.

The Dwarka Shankaracharya told this to reporters when asked why the BJP was not building the Ram temple in Ayodhya despite having taken a vow on it.

The Hindu seer is visiting Vrindavan near here on the occasion of 'chaturmas', a holy period of four months as per the Hindu calendar.

Ram temple in Ayodhya cannot be built by any political party, he said.

He said the moment a political party assumes power, the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues have to take oath to the Constitution, which, being secular, does not allow any party in power to build temples, mosques, gurdwaras or churches.

He also denounced Muslim bodies' claim that there existed Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

Neither the first Mughal emperor Babar nor his lieutenant Mir Baqi ever visited Ayodhya, he said.

"So the question of existence of a Babri masjid named after the Mughal emperor does not arise," he added.

He claimed he had earlier seen Hindu symbols like mangal kalash and pictures of Lord Hanuman at the disputed Ayodhya site.

The seer argued what was demolished in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 was not a mosque but a temple and the claim that the Babri masjid was demolished has only strengthened the stand of the other side.