Guwahati: In a bizarre development, Jaskaur Meena, a BJP MP who represents the Dausa constituency in Rajasthan, has claimed that the novel coronavirus will leave India after completion of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
"We pray and work according to spiritual powers. Coronavirus will leave India for sure as soon as Ram temple is built", Meena has been quoted as saying.
Needless to say, the MP's statement has stirred up a controversy in the nation that still firmly remains in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, even though some of the so-called hotspots (like New Delhi) seem to have left the worst behind.
However, Meena is not the only BJP lawmaker to have landed in a controversy after making such remarks about the dreaded virus. Last week saw a BJP minister launching a brand of papad which he claimed would help cure the Covid-19.
Similarly, the Pro Term Speaker of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Rameshwar Sharma, on Wednesday made a similar claim that the coronavirus would be destroyed by the construction of the Ram temple.
BJP politician Pragya Thakur made a claim that reciting the Hanuman Chalisa "five times a day at 7 pm till August 5" would put a full stop to the pandemic that has so far killed over 6 lakh people across the world.
The ceremony for the starting of the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya is scheduled for August 5 and will reportedly be attended by the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The area to build the temple -- the cause of a long-running dispute between Hindus and Muslims -- was handed over to a trust by a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court in November of 2019. The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust began the first phase of construction of the Ram Temple in March 2020.