The belated decision to register FIRs against eight employees and a retired banker for alleged embezzlement of funds from the Shree Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust in Ayodhya confirms a suspicion voiced by many. In absolving the trustees, all of whom are RSS associates, of wrongdoing or responsibility for failures in managing, accounting and supervising funds, the Uttar Pradesh government of Yogi Adityanath has made these employees the fall guys.

Will that be enough, though, to secure his own position in the state? The question is doing the rounds in the political circles of state capital Lucknow. 

The uneasy relationship between the BJP bigwigs at the Centre and the Yogi government is a fairly open secret. Yogi, who is not from the RSS, had no say in either appointing Trust members or managing the donation or other construction activities of the temple. 

If senior RSS functionaries were arrested for negligence or complicity, the chief minister ran the risk of falling afoul of this extra-constitutional powerhouse. But he still risks losing face with his admiring Hindutva hordes, even though it’s hard to believe that the embezzlement of funds and donations happened without the complicity or connivance of the trustees. 

With assembly elections due in Uttar Pradesh in 2027, Yogi faced a difficult choice, and the temple controversy was the last........

© National Herald