Sonia Gandhi's old letter to Pope goes viral after she declines Ram temple inauguration invite

Soon after top Congress leader Sonia Gandhi turned down the invitation to the Ram temple consecration ceremony, a letter she wrote to Pope Francis in the year 2016 about not being able to make it to the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa immediately went viral on social media.

Elucidating on how she could not attend the "sacred ceremony", the then Congress party president, in the letter, said that had she not been indisposed, she would have been present to witness the event.

At the time, she also nominated two senior party leaders, Margaret Alva and Luizinho Faleiro, to attend the Vatican ceremony on her behalf.

"Every citizen of India, including our nearly 20 million Catholics, takes immense pride and joy on the recognition by your Holiness and the Catholic Church of Mother Teresa's profound nobility of soul, purity of purpose, and service to God through service to humanity," she wrote in her letter.

"If I had not been unwell, I too would have been there to witness this sacred ceremony, and to pay my humble homage to the woman who was the very embodiment of boundless compassion, mercy, and grace," she added.

Gandhi along with party colleagues Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had on Wednesday "respectfully declined" the invite to attend the Ram Temple ceremony inviting severe backlash from ruling party BJP.

The official release issued by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, "Lord Ram is worshipped by millions in our country. Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya."

'For the sake of appeasement', Union minister Pralhad Joshi slams congress

Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Thursday said that the Congress party turned down the invitation for the "sake of appeasement."

"For the sake of appeasement, the Congress party is continuously opposing Hindu beliefs. Whenever the issue of Ram Temple has been raised in the last two to four decades, they have always opposed it. They even said Lord Ram was a fictional figure and questioned the Ram Setu... The present Congress party has reached the heights of appeasement. I am not surprised by their decision..." Joshi told news agency ANI.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi highlighted a pattern of boycotts by the Congress who had earlier skipped the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building, the G20 Summit, and also the President's address.

"Congress boycotted the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building, the G20 Summit, Kargil Vijay Diwas from 2004 to 2009, and even the Bharat Ratna ceremony of former President Pranab Mukherjee, who belonged to their party," Trivedi said.

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'This is Nehru's Congress, not Gandhi's Congress'

Trivedi, launching a scathing attack against the grand old party, invoked India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru claiming, "This is Nehru's Congress, this is not Gandhi's Congress. Mahatma Gandhi used to sing 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' and today Congress is not attending the "pran pratishtha" ceremony. This shows Congress is against Hindu religion and Hindutva."

Karnataka BJP leader CT Ravi also cited an incident where Nehru had refused to visit Somnath Temple in Gujarat claiming that the party through the ages opposed "Hindutva".

"Congress has always been against Hindutva. Somnath Temple was reconstructed by Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, Babu Rajendra Prasad, and KM Munshi. Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister during that time. He didn't visit Somanth. So how can the present leadership of Congress go to Ayodhya?," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)