New Delhi: BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday launched a fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Ram Mandir, claiming the Prime Minister had “no role” in the legal battle over the Ayodhya temple and urging him to “withdraw from the construction of Ram Mandir.” The remarks came days after Swamy accused the Modi government of failing to prevent the alleged embezzlement of donations at the temple.

“Ram Mandir issue was taken up in the Supreme Court after I moved a Petition stating that it was not the issue whether the site belonged to Hindus or Muslims. On Ashok Singhal’s urging, I took up the issue as a national site since thousands of years. Muslims invaders had demolished it 700 years by force. Ram Temple was earlier built by Hindus for prayer. Narendra Modi had no role for the restoration but after I won the case in the Supreme Court Modi used his position as PM to grab the rebuilding with no role in the past in the struggle for it or file a case in SC except at the final stage when SC had already decided the matter. But Lord Ram has “spoken” in the recent days, and shown His ire. Time for Modi to withdraw from the construction of Ram Mandir,” Swamy wrote in a post on X.

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Earlier this week, Swamy had linked Modi to the alleged Ram Temple donation embezzlement case.

“Prime Minister Modi is responsible for disgraceful robbery in Ram Mandir by persons appointed by Modi, to service the need of keeping clean the Temple and ensure Bhagvan Ram’s holy Murti in the Temple is safe. Instead, the persons appointed by Modi in truth have let all Bhaktas down by the free loot. They should be prosecuted immediately,” he wrote in X.

The controversy over the alleged embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple surfaced on June 7. The Uttar Pradesh government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on June 13 at the request of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which submitted its preliminary report to the government on June 23.

Eight persons named in an FIR over the alleged embezzlement of donations received at the Ram temple in Ayodhya have been arrested, senior officials said on Friday.

The FIR, lodged at the instance of Krishna Mohan, a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, follows recommendations made in the preliminary report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government to probe the allegations.

Senior officials said all eight persons named in the FIR have been arrested and are being questioned as part of the investigation.

Those named in the FIR – Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu – were associated with the process of counting cash and valuables received as donations at the temple, an official said.