(Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead a ceremony on Monday to consecrate a grand new temple to the Hindu god-king Ram, delivering on a campaign promise his political party made more than three decades ago.
Legal battles ended in 2019 with the Supreme Court deciding to allow a Hindu temple to be built there, on condition that Muslims received another plot to build a mosque.
In Dec. 1949, authorities seized the mosque after Hindu activists placed idols of Ram inside the disputed structure.
Hindu and Muslim groups tried unsuccessfully to resolve the dispute through talks, before Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a nationwide campaign in 1990 to build the temple.
He rode to the office of prime minister in 2014 on a Hindu nationalist platform that included the promise to build the temple.
Persons:
Narendra Modi, Ram, Modi, Modi's, Nripendra Misra, Lord Vishnu, Babur, India's, Lal Krishna Advani, Krishn Kaushik, Krishna Das, YP Rajesh, Clarence Fernandez
Organizations:
Reuters, Indian, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, YP
Locations:
India, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Gujarat