A life devoted to seva, sadhana aur sankalp — service, devotion, and resolve — is how Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai chose to remember Ashok Singhal, former international president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), on his birth anniversary on Sunday, September 27, 2026.

Posting in Hindi on X, CM Sai described Singhal as a 'foremost pillar of the Ram Janmabhoomi Andolan', offering him a hundred salutations — 'shat-shat naman'. He wrote that Singhal's entire life stood as 'an unparalleled example of service, devotion, and resolve', dedicated to the preservation of Sanatan Sanskriti (eternal Hindu culture), national interest, and social awakening. 'His thoughts and work,' the Chief Minister added, 'will always continue to inspire society.'

Who Was Ashok Singhal?

Ashok Singhal served as the international president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Hindu nationalist organisation founded in 1964 with a focus on cultural preservation and social service. He became one of the most prominent faces of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement — the decades-long campaign for the construction of a temple at the site in Ayodhya believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram. His organisational work gave the movement its sustained mass character across India and within diaspora communities.

Tributes as a Political Ritual in the Sangh Ecosystem

BJP leaders at the state and national level routinely mark birth and death anniversaries of figures from the broader Sangh Parivar — the family of organisations rooted in RSS ideology — with public statements. These tributes consistently foreground themes of cultural preservation, Hindutva, and social mobilisation, reinforcing ideological continuity between elected government and the movement that shaped the party. CM Sai's post fits squarely into that tradition.

For Chhattisgarh's Chief Minister — himself a BJP leader who took office after the party's victory in the 2023 state assembly elections — honouring a figure of Singhal's stature also carries symbolic weight: it signals alignment with the foundational convictions of the organisation he leads, not merely its electoral machinery.

Singhal's legacy, anchored in Ayodhya, took on fresh resonance after the Supreme Court's 2019 verdict paved the way for temple construction, and the Ram Mandir consecration in January 2024 was widely seen as the fulfilment of the cause he championed for decades. In that context, remembering him is remembering the movement's long arc — from street agitation to stone and mortar.