india

Updated: Jan 18, 2019 12:36 IST

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the ruling BJP’s ideological mentor which had demanded an ordinance to start building the Ram temple at Ayodhya, on Friday set 2025 as the outer deadline to complete the project.

“It is our desire that the Ram Mandir should be constructed. It should be completed by 2025,” RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said, according to news agency ANI, after addressing an event that saw him predict that the country would develop rapidly for at least 150 years after the temple was built. Bhaiyyaji Joshi also said at the same event that he was sure that the country will start developing rapidly with the construction of the temple at Ayodhya by 2025.

The senior RSS leader rejected a suggestion that it was pushing the dates.

“It is only if the construction begins today that it will be completed in 5 years,” he said, adding that the government has to decide the dates.