In a first-of-its-kind event, a Congress MLA has decided to take the residents of his constituency on a free of cost tour to Ayodhya to visit Lord Ram temple. He has planned to start the tour by next month and the people from each ward will be visiting the Ram temple every month at his own expense. 

Congress MLA Sanjay Shukla of Madhya Pradesh, who is representing the Indore-1 constituency, has come up with the tour de Ayodhya that has drawn major attention. He announced the tour in his statement on Wednesday and said that he would take residents from his constituency for pilgrimage to Ayodhya at his own expense to fulfil their desire to visit the temple in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. 

Shukla said, "Lord Ram is ideal of all of us. I want to fulfil the desire of every person of my assembly constituency to visit the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya." He further said that the first batch of 600 pilgrims from Indore will leave for Ayodhya on December 18 by train. He added that his assembly constituency has 17 wards of the Indore Municipal Corporation and that he will take citizens of each ward for Ayodhya visit every month at his own expense.

Reacting to his statement, the BJP has said that the Congress MLA shouldn't select the citizens for the tour based on their political ideologies. Indore BJP President Gaurav Ranadive said, "Lord Ram has given wisdom to Shukla. Lord Ram belongs to everyone. He further accused Congress of seeking common people only as a vote bank, Ranadive said Shukla should not select citizens for the tour based on their political stand. 

It must be noted that in October this year, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh had announced a general knowledge contest based on Ramayan and the prize was a trip to Ayodhya. Speaking about this competition, Madhya Pradesh Minister of Tourism and Culture, Usha Thakur said, "The winners of the competition will get an opportunity to travel by air to Ayodhya."