Mumbai, Apr 07, 2023, IANS
Mumbai, April 7 (IANS): Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will travel to Ayodhya for a darshan of the Lord Ram Temple there, and then likely to have a dinner meeting with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday, an official said here on Friday.
This will be a second visit by a Maharashtra Chief Minister to the upcoming Ram Temple - in March 2020, then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had prayed there.
Shinde will depart from Mumbai on Saturday evening for Lucknow, accompanied by party ministers, MLAs, MPs and other leaders of the Shiv Sena, following an invite extended recently by the Mahant of Ayodhya.
More than 3,000 Shiv Sena activists from Shinde's home district and other parts have already left for Ayodhya to join him there, said the party's Spokesperson Krishna Hegde.
After an overnight halt in the Uttar Pradesh capital, the Chief Minister will fly by helicopter from Lucknow to Ayodhya where he will participate in the Maha Aarti at the Lord Ram Temple and then visit the temple construction site.
Hegde said thereafter, Shinde will go to the Laxman Killa and seek the blessings of saints and mahants there followed by an aarti at the River Sharayu.
Shinde will then drive down to Lucknow for a possible dinner rendezvous with the Chief Minister Adityanath scheduled at the latter's residence around 9 p.m. on Sunday.
Upon completing his final engagement, the Maharashtra delegation is expected to depart for Mumbai around midnight.
Shinde's trip to Ayodhya comes a week after the Maharashtra government sent the first consignment of prized teak-wood from Chandrapur district for the Lord Ram Temple's main doors, windows, the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum and wooden construction requirements.
Earlier, then Maharashtra minister Aditya Thackeray and other senior leaders had gone to Ayodhya and prayed at the Lord Ram Temple in June 2022, barely a fortnight before the MVA government was toppled by a Shinde-led rebellion.
However, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray - the estranged cousin of Uddhav - was barred from going to Ayodhya in early June 2022 in view of threats by the Uttar Pradesh BJP MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, though the MNS-BJP are now cosying up in this state.