Aditya Thackeray to visit Ayodhya, will attend Arti at Saryu river bank

|HT|

Maharashtra minister and Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray will on Wednesday arrive in Ayodhya for a day-long pilgrimage to the temple town, where he will also attend an arti on the banks of the Saryu river. He was expected to land in Lucknow around 11.30am before driving to Ayodhya. A Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut-led team of Shiv Sena leaders has been in Ayodhya since Monday to oversee the preparations for Thackeray’s third visit to the town. He accompanied his father, Maharashtra chief minister Udhav Thackeray, to Ayodhya in November 2018 and March 2020.

The visit comes as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (NNS) have criticised Shiv Sena for “abandoning Hindutva”.

Shiv Sena formed the government in Maharashtra in alliance with Congress and Nationalist Congress Party after ending a decades-old alliance with the BJP.

Raj Thackeray was scheduled to visit Ayodhya this month but the visit was cancelled for health reasons. Brij Bhushan Saran Singh, the BJP Member of Parliament from Kaiserganj, has been at the forefront of those opposing Raj Thackeray’s Ayodhya visit, saying the MNS leader should apologise for targeting North Indians in Mumbai.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)