Roof above Ram Lalla leaking, says Chief priest

 'Its pran parishtha (consecration) was done on January 22 but nobody thought its ceiling would start leaking when it rains'

Piyush Srivastava, TT, Lucknow, 26.06.24  : The ceiling of the sanctum sanctorum of the newly constructed Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, where Ram Lalla has been installed, is leaking, said Mahant

Satyendra Das, the chief priest of the temple.

The garbh grih or the sanctum sanctorum was opened to the public after a grand ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January.

Calling the leak unfortunate, Das said: “It is very surprising. Engineers from the entire nation were here to build the Ram temple. Its pran parishtha (consecration) was done on January 22 but nobody thought its ceiling would start leaking when it rains,” he told reporters on Monday.

“It wasn’t leaking when the rainfall was modest but water started seeping through the first floor ceiling after a heavy downpour. It is really unfortunate,” Das said on Tuesday.

Nripendra Mishra, the head of the temple’s construction committee set up by the Centre, however, said everything was fine.

“I assure crores of devotees that there is no problem in the construction of the building and everything is fine. There has been no negligence in the construction work. It is a baseless rumour that water is leaking from the roof,” he said.

He added that the construction work on the temple’s first floor would be complete by July-end.

“The second floor of the building is open at the moment. The drain of the sanctum sanctorum got blocked because of the construction work. We are removing the water from the garbh grih manually,” he said.

Anil Mishra, a member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, a trust set up for the construction and management of the temple by the Centre, said: “The work of water-proofing is going on at the first floor of the building. It is pre-monsoon time and everything would be fine before the monsoon arrives.”

All four Shankacharyas had opposed the consecration of the temple before it was completely built. They had said that pran parishtha of an under-construction temple was against the norms of the Hindu religion.

The government, however, did not pay heed to the suggestions of the top representatives of Sanatan Dharma and went ahead with its plan to invite over 8,000 VIPs from across the country and organised the temple inauguration on January 22.

Many looked at it as a political gimmick of the BJP government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP, however, could win only 33 out of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, losing the Faizabad constituency under which Ayodhya falls.

The party won 62 parliamentary seats in UP in 2019.