Why Ayodhya could be a win-lose proposition for BJP after initial benefits

Electoral returns from Ayodhya issue are mostly incalculable. After initial benefits, temple became a weight BJP found hard to lug

Ayodhya and the Ram temple are strange phenomena in electoral terms. After scaling an apogee of success on the temple agitation in the 1989 and 1991 general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the main receptacle of votes for a temple on the site of the Babri mosque — never climbed the same heights. Yet, by positioning the temple at the core of its political agenda, the BJP landed in a piquant situation: Ram was there and not there for people. The temple became a weight it found hard to lug and impossible to discard. Therefore, although conventional political