Ram Lalla’s homecoming: Festive atmosphere prevails across country

Ram Mandir will be inaugurated today in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya, four years after the landmark Supreme Court judgment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in Ayodhya, and the Ram Mandir Pran Pratistha ceremony is set to commence shortly.

The mega event will feature the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of Ram Lalla (idol of infant Lord Ram), with the rituals led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

More than 7,000 people will be in attendance, including politicians, celebrities, industrialists, saints and around 100 representatives from different countries. Visuals from this morning showed several celebrities, including Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and other superstars such Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif, Vicky Kaushal, along with South actors Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan, leaving for Ayodhya ahead of the grand consecration ceremony.

Several states and Union territories, including Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir, among others, have declared a holiday or half day today. The central government has announced a half day.

Markets will also remain closed on Monday, as both the National Stock Exchange and Reserve Bank of India have announced a hoilday for equity and money markets.

Along with PM Modi, the event will have RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others as attendees. Business tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, and cricketing legends Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, along with Virat Kohli have also been invited to the event.

The temple’s design, rooted in the traditional Nagara style, features a length of 380 feet, a width of 250 feet, and a height of 161 feet. Designed by Chandrakant Sompura and his son Ashish, the temple complex spans 70 acres, with the main temple area covering 2.7 acres and a built-up area of about 57,000 square feet. The entire structure, valued at Rs 1,800 crore, has been financed by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which has collected over Rs 3,500 crore in donations from across India and abroad.

The Ram Lalla idol carved by Karnataka’s renowned sculptor Arun Yogiraj will be consecrated in the temple today. The idol was installed inside the sanctum sanctorum on January 18 as part of the rituals. The 51-inch, black-coloured-idol shows Lord Ram as a five-year-old child. The current idol of Ram Lalla, which has been worshipped for the last 70 years, will also be kept in the sanctum sanctorum of the new temple.

Pre-Pran Pratishtha rituals went on between January 16 and January 21. PM Modi is set to be the main ‘yajman‘ and will perform the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ rituals, which are designed to infuse life into the idol of Ram Lalla. A team of priests, led by Lakshmikant Dixit, will oversee the main rituals.

On January 12, the PM Modi announced that he would commence a special 11-day ‘anushthaan’ (rituals) till January 22. According to sources, PM Modi followed practices prescribed by sacred texts, including sleeping on the floor, consuming only coconut water, performing Gau-pooja (cow worship), and engaging in various forms of ‘daan’ such as ‘annadaan’ and donating clothes ahead of the ceremony.

Security has been beefed up in Ayodhya ahead of today’s consecration ceremony of Ram Lalla in the temple. Hotels in the city are fully booked, and strict protocols have been established for the participation of VIPs and VVIPs.

Speaking to India Today, Uttar Pradesh DG (Law and Order), Prashant Kumar, said that 13,000 forces have been deployed, and cops are using artificial intelligence-powered CCTV to better the security system in Ayodhya. As many as 10,000 CCTV cameras have been installed across the city for 24×7 monitoring ahead of the ‘Pran Pratishtha’. There is also anti-drone technology.

Anti-bomb and dog squads have been deployed at Ayodhya’s newly inaugurated Maharishi Valmiki International Airport as devotees and dignitaries have been arriving in the city since yesterday for the ‘Pran Pratishtha’.