Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav will visit the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on December 12, the Samajwadi Party president has announced. It will be his first visit to the temple.
The date has been tied to the completion of his Kedareshwar Dham project in Etawah, and it lands months before the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Both facts have shaped how the announcement is being read in Lucknow.
The Samajwadi Party describes the visit as a religious matter. The party has not put out a detailed statement on the programme yet.
The BJP's response was immediate. Party leaders called the visit an electoral device aimed at shedding the minority-appeasement charge that has stuck to the Samajwadi Party for years, and at reaching non-Yadav OBC and upper-caste voters ahead of the polls.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath demanded an apology first. He said Yadav should answer for his party's record in the 1990s and for actions against Ram bhakts before presenting himself as a devotee, and accused the Opposition of using faith as a political instrument. Other BJP leaders struck the same note.
Preparations around the temple complex are reported to have begun, though no official word has come on the timing of the visit or who Yadav will meet. His office has not released a schedule.
Temple visits have become a set piece of Uttar Pradesh politics before 2027. Leaders from several parties have made the trip to Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura over the past two years. Yadav's visit stands apart because it is a first — and because the Samajwadi Party has historically kept its distance from temple events in Ayodhya.
Within the party, the decision has set off its own conversation. Sections of the leadership have argued for years that staying away from such platforms ceded ground the party could not recover, while others see the risk of being read as imitative.
What Yadav says on December 12, and whether he frames the visit around development in Ayodhya rather than devotion, is being watched closely by both sides.