Congress didn't deserve Ram mandir invitation: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the Congress could have apologised to the Hindu community by accepting the Ram temple invitation

Ram mandir inauguration: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday slammed the Congress party after the party's senior leaders - Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury- refused to attend the Ram mandir consecration ceremony on January 22.

"The VHP had given the Congress party a golden opportunity to reduce its sin by extending their leadership an invitation to attend the Shri Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha Mahotsav. Although, in my humble view, they did not deserve such an invitation in the first place for their views against the Ram Mandir from the very beginning," Sarma said.

This comes a day after the Congress called the inauguration an "RSS/BJP event" and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of making the event a political project for electoral gains.

"Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain," the party's statement read.

Sarma further said the party could've apologised to the Hindu community by accepting the invitation. "By accepting this invitation, they could have symbolically offered an apology to the Hindu Samaj," he said.

The chief minister also raised the topic of the reconstruction of the Somnath temple.

"However, like Pt Nehru did with the Somnath Temple, the Congress leadership did the same with the Ram Temple. History will continue to judge them as an anti-Hindu party," he said.