RSS Leadership in Crisis Over Ayodhya Ram Temple Multi-Crore Donation Scam, SIT Probe Underway

Ayodhya: The RSS leadership finds itself in a deep crisis following revelations of large-scale irregularities involving donations worth crores of rupees at the Ayodhya Ram Temple. Senior RSS leaders have assessed that the scandal — which includes gold ornaments offered by devotees being replaced with fake items and the diversion of offering money — has caused severe damage to the organisation's image.

Discontent is reportedly simmering within RSS circles over the incident. All the senior office-bearers of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which administers the temple, share close ties with the RSS leadership.

Further compounding the organisation's troubles is the fact that the staff entrusted with the crucial task of counting and recording the offering money and ornaments are themselves RSS sympathisers, the majority of whom are now under a cloud of suspicion.

The RSS's continued silence and refusal to issue a public response despite the scale of the irregularities has only deepened the scrutiny it faces.

With the matter snowballing into a major political and social controversy, the Uttar Pradesh government has set up a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case. The investigation is currently focused on the Pilgrim Facilitation Centre, located barely 200 metres from the Ram Temple.

It is in the high-security counting room in the basement of this building that offering boxes from various parts of the temple are brought for the money to be counted and recorded. The investigating team's preliminary finding is that the manipulation took place here.

The counting is carried out daily by a team of around 20 staff working in two shifts — 8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 8 pm. On ordinary days, offerings range between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 13 lakh, while on special occasions the amount can go up to Rs 50–60 lakh.

In addition to cash, devotees offer large quantities of gold and silver ornaments. Overseeing this entire process is Anil Mishra, an RSS leader and member of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. That a fraud of this scale could take place right under his supervision raises serious questions about the credibility of the Trust itself.