With the party’s top leadership deciding to stay away from the event, Congress’s Vikramaditya Singh and Nirmal Khatri were the only party leaders to attend the idol consecration ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on Monday. While Vikramaditya is a minister in the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Himachal Pradesh government, Khatri is the former Faizabad MP and Uttar Pradesh Congress president.

Earlier this month, Vikramaditya, who handles the PWD and Rural Development ministries, said he had accepted the invitation to attend the event because of his father and former Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh’s links to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. “I remain committed to my earlier statement. I intend to visit Ayodhya not as a politician but as the son of the late Virbhadra Singh, a devout follower of Lord Ram. It’s my moral duty as his son to attend. How can I refuse this putra dharam (son’s duty)?” he asked.

Congress leaders within the Himachal Pradesh unit say there “are differences between Vikramaditya and current state Congress leaders”, adding that “this is the first time when Vikramaditya” chose to defy the party diktat by attending the event. The party is learnt to have told its leaders to go to the Ram temple after January 22. The Himachal minister is scheduled to go to Delhi from Lucknow on Tuesday and did not wish to talk about his commitments.

Vikramaditya had earlier told The Indian Express over the phone, “I have conveyed my views to senior party leaders. I received the invitation not for myself but out of respect for my late father. He was involved in the Ram Jannmabhoomi movement. However, I want to clarify, I oppose the RSS-VHP, BJP’s ideology of Hindu Rashtra, and their polarisation policies. I am a dedicated Congress worker loyal to its ideology.”

Apart from Vikramaditya, who holds the sports and public works department portfolios, Himachal Panchayati Raj Minister Anirudh Singh had also declared his intention to attend the consecration ceremony. The Sukhu government on Sunday announced a full-day holiday in the state on Monday to mark the inauguration of the Ram Temple.

Meanwhile, Khatri last week pointed to the UP Congress’s visit to Ayodhya on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, when they took a dip in the Saryu river and offered prayers at both Hanumangarhi and the makeshift Ram Temple, and questioned such politics of “event versus event” and said this had inspired him to accept the invitation. He added that the Congress can fight against any ideology only by strengthening its ideological foundation and not by organising an event to “counter” its opponents which, he said, it anyway could not match. “Ram bhakt hona koi paap nahin hai. Mujhe iss bhakti par garv hai (There’s nothing wrong in being a Ram Bhakt. I’m proud to be one),” the 73-year-old Congress leader posted on social media.