No final decision on Ram Lalla idol: Ayodhya temple trust

The Ram temple trust is yet to take a final decision on which of the three Ram Lalla idols being sculpted over the past months will be installed at the temple here, those associated with the trust said on Tuesday.

On Monday, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa had congratulated Arun Yogiraj, a sculptor from the state, saying that the idol carved by him has been chosen to be enshrined at the new temple Ayodhya.

But the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which is building the temple, has not made its decision known.

The decision will be taken by the trust in consultation with Shankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswati and other seers, trust functionaries said.

"Whatever is the decision of the trust, it will be made public at an appropriate time," Prakash Gupta, office in-charge of the trust told PTI.

The chosen idol will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum and consecrated at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22.

The first phase of the temple's construction is now over.

Since 1949, devotees have offered prayers at a makeshift shrine housing an idol of Ram Lalla.

This shrine too was shifted for the temple's construction, which began after a historic Supreme Court verdict in 2019 that settled the temple-mosque dispute in Ayodhya.

Now, trust officials say, that the old “movable” idol will now be kept in the complex for festive occasions, indirectly suggesting that it could be on display on some days of the year.

Three sculptors worked separately on different boulders to carve out idols of the deity.

For two of them, the stone came from Karnataka and the third idol was being carved out from a rock brought from Rajasthan.

The idols were carved by sculptors Satyanarayan Pandey from Jaipur, and Ganesh Bhatt and Arun Yogiraj from Karnataka.

While picking the idol for the sanctum sanctorum, a technical report would also be taken into consideration on aspects like the longevity of its sheen, according to trust officials.

On Monday, Yediyurappa had congratulated the Karnataka sculptor on social media for the "selection" of his work.

"The idol of Lord Rama sculpted by the sculptor Arun Yogiraj of Mysuru has been selected for installation in the magnificent Sri Rama Mandir of Ayodhya, which has doubled the pride and happiness of the entire Rama devotees of the state. Heartfelt congratulations to ‘Shilpi @yogiraj arun'."

Yediyurappa's son and BJP state president B Y Vijayendra too hailed Yogiraj.

But Yogiraj told PTI that he had not yet received any official communication about his idol being accepted. "I am happy that I was among the three sculptors from the country who were selected to carve the idol of ‘Ram Lalla'," he said.

Earlier, he has sculpted the idol of Adi Shankaracharya placed in Uttarakhand's Kedarnath and the statue of Subhas Chandra Bose installed near India Gate.