The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday hit out at the opposition leaders who have refused to attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22, calling them “anti-Sanatana”. The saffron party shared a black and white poster of all those leaders who have declined the invite on X, formerly known as Twitter with the text: “Recognise those faces who are refusing the Ram Mandir invite…Anti-Sanatana INDI alliance” – written on it.

“Recognise, the faces of the Sanatan opponents who rejected the invitation for the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony,” the party captioned the X post.

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday declined the invitation for the main Ram Mandir ceremony, saying it is a “political project for electoral gains”.

“Religion is a personal matter. But the RSS/BJP have long made a political project of the temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the incomplete temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS has been obviously brought forward for electoral gain,” the party’s statement read.

Apart from the Congress leaders, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury have turned down the invitation. Reportedly, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has also said he would not be attending the event.

Earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi invoked India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while slamming the Congress, saying, “This is Nehru’s Congress, this is not Gandhi’s Congress. Mahatma Gandhi used to sing ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’ and today Congress is not attending the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony. This shows Congress is against Hindu religion and Hindutva.”

The much-awaited Ram temple consecration ceremony will be held on January 22 in the holy city of Ayodhya, while the rituals for the event will begin on January 16.