By Arun Srivastava
Hindu organizations, including RSS, BJP, VHP are silent on the scam at Ram Mandir. They would. It is expected of them. It is wrong to believe that they are maintaining silence out of shame and public outrage. It is also not the fact that they are silent as they don’t yet know who is the perpetrator. Inside the saffron ecosystem.
The assiduous silence and unwillingness to act by the top RSS and BJP leaders, initially has been noted by the BJP members in Uttar Pradesh. It is said that the Ram Mandir donation cash scam in Ayodhya was exposed after temple trust officials noticed repeated, massive shortfalls in ₹500 note bundles from donation boxes and installed hidden cameras in the counting room, which caught counting staff covering CCTV cameras and smuggling cash out in temple toilets.
There were attempts to cover up the scam in the beginning, but the amount was so massive and the development spread so wide that it was not possible to hide the scam. The State government had to move and the official agencies had to get involved., . The Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was inaugurated on January 22, 2024, during a grand consecration (Pran Pratishtha) ceremony led by Narendra Modi. The temple is allegedly is built on the site revered by Hindus as the birthplace of Lord Rama though it continues to be unverified.
The whistleblower who initially brought the allegations to light is Mahipal Singh (who supervised the accounts team). He was dismissed from his job by Champat Rai, secretary of the Trust in 2021 after reporting alleged thefts of donations directly to Trust members. Mahipal Singh and political leaders alleged that cash and jewellery offerings were embezzled by temple staff under the trust’s supervision. The missing amounts are claimed to be between ₹7 to ₹7.5 crore. Mahipal Singh alleged that after he reported the irregularities and mentioned that CCTV footage had been deleted,.
The cash scam came into the notice of the central BJP leaders in the year 2021 itself. But no preventive steps were taken.. The scam was allowed to continue. It was in 2021 itself that whistleblowers and some journalists brought these discrepancies to light and faced intense pushback, legal cases, and job terminations. Employees and accounts officers who flagged irregularities to Trust officials were terminated. The state and local BJP leaders resorted to their favourite abusive and smearing catchwords and accused the journalists of being anti-Hindu and anti-nationals. Journalist Vineet Narain, who exposed alleged land-grabbing by Trust associates were targeted with First Information Reports (FIRs) and forced to seek legal protection from the Allahabad High Court.
The centre not taking action in this nature of scam in the initial stage , which had shattered the trust of the common Hindus, is the talking point in the political and social sphere. Before internal audits caught it, an alert security guard reportedly caught a counting staff member attempting to hide cash in a washroom. Most of the Trust members are close to Mohan Bhagwat. So there is whispering campaign in the anti-Bhagwat BJP camp against the RSS chief for tolerating this continuing scam at Ram Mandir coffers for a long period.
The RSS has faced severe internal and political scrutiny following a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the alleged multi-crore embezzlement and theft of cash and valuables at the Ayodhya Ram Mandir. Having realised the intensity of the deep rooted conspiracy to give a bad name to the RSS, Bhagwat rather than ignoring the complaints, has ordered an internal inquiry from Ayodhya—overseen by eastern Uttar Pradesh pracharak Anil—before taking severe public disciplinary measures. Senior leader Bhaiyyaji Joshi, who is hated by Modi and his elevation to the office of the national president of the BJP was frustrated by Modi, has also submitted his preliminary findings to the leadership.
Little doubt the initial instinct of the Sangh leadership has been to extend protection to the trust’s management to shield the temple’s image. However, mounting public and political pressure, compounded by State Bank of India (SBI) reports, eventually forced prominent RSS figures like General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Kumar Mishra to submit their resignations. Their resignations have the approval of Bhagwat. It was a strategic move of Bhagwat to shift the target of attack.
The crackdown was largely spearheaded by the Uttar Pradesh government and its SIT, exposing fractures between central Sangh leaders trying to manage the narrative and the Adityanath administration, which utilized the investigation to root out institutional mismanagement. While the RSS has intensified internal monitoring and cooperated to some extent, opposition parties have actively questioned the silence of national figures and demanded broader Supreme Court-supervised probes into the entire Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust.
Though Congress has launched scathing accusation against the RSS and BJP leadership for the scam, and wanted a judicial probe monitored by the Supreme Court, the Samajwadi Party is confused in the matter of targeting the RSS or BJP as the main accused. True enough peoples’ anger and outrage against saffron ecosystem has forced the opposition to jump into the fray. Devotees allegedly witnessed irregularities surrounding swindled funds, missing foundation silver bricks, and donations diverted to questionable accounts. Critics allege that CCTV footage of the cash counting areas was deliberately blocked and auto-deleted.
The scam has in fact split the BJP leadership from Uttar Pradesh. Most of the leaders feel that some national BJP leader for furthering their political leaders have allowed the scam to attain such a scale. These leaders were sure that since the BJP would not do well in the 2027 assembly election, they must use the scam to discredit the RSS leaders and have their own way. They have been working on the plan to remove Bhagwat from the post of RSS chief well before the assembly election. If their design takes a concrete shape, the new RSS chief would take charge well before 2029 Lok Sabha election. They new RSS chief would be more amenable to the top leadership of BJP.
Already senior BJP leader Vinay Katiyar and other party spokespersons have expressed frustration, publicly demanding transparent investigations and accountability. He was a prominent figure in the Ayodhya Ram Mandir movement and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. As the founder of the Bajrang Dal and a former Member of Parliament for Faizabad, he was one of the key leaders on the ground when the mosque was razed in 1992. He was a frontline organizer of the movement, and the entire strategy for the kar seva (voluntary service) was notably planned at his residence in Ayodhya. The CBI alleged that he, alongside other leaders, plotted the demolition and delivered provocative speeches to the crowd.
The decision by BJP leaders to handle major corruption allegations openly, even with critical assembly elections approaching, has caused much consternation in the saffron ecosystem. They are finding it a tough proposition to decode the reason for this attitude. Allowing an investigation or a scandal to become public, the leadership shifts the narrative from a “cover-up” to an active cleanup .The BJP leaders presenting the party as an entity that does not spare its own, thereby using the scandal to reinforce their anti-corruption brand.
Especially for the CM Adityanath, it is imperative to project a clean image of his government before the 2027 assembly polls.. Adityanath has to organize the RSS cadres in the campaign for elections which is already on. Any wrong signal to the RSS from the state government will be detrimental to the CM. It will be seen how the UP CM does the crisis management of the RSS involvement in massive funds and jewellery theft in Ram Mandir without subverting the RSS participation in his campaign to retain power in Uttar Pradesh again. (IPA Service)
