Lucknow, Oct 18: Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma on Tuesday inspected 25 acres of land earmarked for a proposed Ramayan museum in Ayodhya and said the project had nothing to do with Ram Mandir politics ahead of the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
“My visit here is purely as a Tourism Minister and no politics should be attributed to it,” he told the media here.
The Minister denied the opposition contention that the multi-crore museum project was linked to Bharatiya Jata Party’s plans to give fresh impetus to the Ram temple movement.
Sharma said while the opposition was blindly pursuing politics on the issue, the BJP was following the path of development.
He said the Union government had proposed to establish a Ramayan Circuit to promote tourism and Rs 225 crore were sanctioned for it, including Rs 151 crore for the museum that is proposed to be built about 15 km from the disputed Ramjambhoomi site in Ayodhya. (IANS)