No one from the Gandhi family will be in a position to contest elections from Uttar Pradesh and the Congress party will face the consequences of opposing the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Union minister for information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur said on Monday.

The minister said the Congress had not only contested that the Babri Masjid was built after demolishing a temple in Ayodhya but is in alliance with a party that was responsible for firing at the Kar Sevaks.

“No one from the Gandhi family will be in a position to contest from Uttar Pradesh…not even the ones who contested and won. Jo Ram ka virodh karte the, aaj UP mein pav daal ne se dar rahe hai (those who used to oppose Ram are scared of stepping into UP),” the minister said.

Sonia Gandhi, elected from Rae Bareilly, is the only member of the Gandhi family who is a lawmaker from UP. In 2019 Rahul Gandhi lost the election from the family borough of Amethi but won from Wayand in Kerala.

Taking pot shots at the Congress’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP, Thakur said the party has allied with those who “showered bullets on ram bhakts”. The minister’s reference was to the Mulayam Singh Yadav government’s action against Kar Sevaks in 1990 to prevent them from reaching the Babri Masjid that was later demolished in 1992.

The minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not only fulfilled the promise of constructing a Ram temple but has also fulfilled the other ideological promises such as the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and outlawing Triple Talaq. “By fulfilling the ideological promises from day one, the BJP’s popularity and credibility has gone up,” he said.

Fulfilling these promises, he said has been a big morale booster for the cadre and the MPs, he added.

The minister also accused the Congress of undermining democracy. “They made the first attempt when they imposed Emergency and then another unsuccessful attempt to defame democracy, by raising questions about the Sengol, new Parliament, and distanced themselves from all events such as G20…They have proved that for them ‘Dal’ (party) is bigger than the ‘Desh’ (country),” he said.

To the opposition’s allegation that only chief ministers of non-BJP states are being probed by law enforcement agencies in a bid to put pressure on them, the minister said the ongoing investigations pertain to scams that happened earlier, and the BJP’s poll plank was a crackdown on corruption.

“Lalu Yadav is being investigated for the land scam that happened during the UPA rule. (In Jharkhand) there are cases pertaining to the coal scam during Shibu Soren’s tenure and the land scam during Hemant Soren’s… those in AAP who are accused of irregularities have not even been given bail by the courts… Sonia Gandhi and Rahul are on bail. The credibility of the agencies has gone up,” he said.