Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday endorsed the Congress high command's decision not to attend the consecration ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying the BJP has turned a religious event into a political affair.
In a statement, the Chief Minister charged the BJP and RSS with having turned a religious event into a party function thereby insulting 140 crore Indians.
Referring to the purported statement of the secretary of the Ram Mandir trust that Shaiva and Shaktas have no authority in the Ram Mandir, he said it has caused a controversy.
Four Shankaracharyas are reported to have boycotted the consecration of the temple "in protest against the misuse of the Ram Mandir for politics", he said.
In a statement on 'X', Siddaramaiah said, "AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior leader of our party Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who are not participating in the Ramlalla inauguration programme in Ayodhya, are correct in their decision, which I support."
He accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of the Sangh Parivar of having 'disrespected' Lord Ram and the 140 crore people of the country by politicising a religious event that should be conducted with devotion and respect for all, regardless of caste, religion, party-sect, into a party function.
"It is a betrayal of all the Hindus that a religious programme, which should have been conducted with devotion has been turned into a political propaganda," Siddaramaiah alleged.
Siddaramaiah underlined that the Congress party has remained committed to its stand since the day the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute began.
Reacting to the statement of the secretary of the Ram Mandir Trust, he said, "It has sparked a controversy. If it is true, it is an insult to all Shaivites."
Alleging that the Prime Minister, who is about to complete 10 years of rule, does not have the confidence to win the elections by presenting his achievements to the voters, Siddaramaiah said for this reason, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, he is hurriedly inaugurating the Rama temple, which is in an incomplete state, and through this, he has tried to cover up his failure by attempting to create a Hindutva wave.
The Chief Minister noted that the people of the country have been seriously observing the politics of BJP and the Sangh Parivar and will never fall victim to their trap.
"People have already started asking for the account of donations collected in the name of brick," he noted.
Averring that Congress was not against Hinduism, the CM said the grand old party is, however, against untouchability, casteism, bigotry and corruption in the name of religion. Also, it is totally against using religion for politics.
"We have no problem with the Hindu religion which has been practiced by many dignitaries of the country including Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, Kanakadasa, Narayana Guru, Kuvempu but we continue to oppose the hypocritic Hindutva of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, who are using religion for ppolitical gain," he added.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).