Maha CM, Deputy CMs & other leaders to visit Ayodhya in early Feb

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde along with Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar are slated to visit Ayodhya in early February and pray at the just inaugurated Lord Ram Temple there, official sources said here on Wednesday.

Shinde who was invited for, but skipped the January 22 Pran Pratistha event, had announced that rather than going for solo 'darshan', he would visit Ayodhya at a later date along with the entire state cabinet on behalf of all the people and devotees of Lord Ram in the state.

As per current plans, the visit is likely to take place on February 5, with the CM, both Deputy CMs, all Cabinet Ministers, MPs, MLAs and other party leaders slated to join.

However, Shinde had celebrated the January 22 ceremony by playing the 'dhol' (drum), distributing sweets and raising chants of 'Jai Shri Ram', while Fadnavis was in Nagpur that day.

Besides Maharashtra, the CMs and top leaders of various other BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Goa, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Assam, Gujarat, etc., shall be going for a darshan in the new temple over the next couple of months on various dates, plus Opposition leaders like Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray have also said they will go to Ram Mandir soon.

Since the temple inauguration in the presence of thousands of VVIPs and others, from January 23 onwards, lakhs of devotees from all over India are thronging for darshan to Ayodhya, braving the chilly weather in north India.