On the birth anniversary of Vishva Hindu Parishad's former international president, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav offered a deeply reverential tribute on Sunday, September 27, 2026, honouring the man whose decades-long crusade helped shape one of independent India's most consequential cultural chapters.

In his post, Dr. Yadav wrote: 'Koti-koti naman' — meaning 'a hundred-million salutations' — to Ashok Singhal, describing his life as one 'refined by unwavering resolve' for the construction of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, the restoration of India's glorious cultural history, and the cause of Sanatan Dharma.

Who Ashok Singhal was — and why the temple was his life's mission

Ashok Singhal served as the international president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Hindu nationalist organisation founded in 1964 to consolidate Hindu unity and champion cultural causes. From the mid-1980s onward, Singhal became the single most recognisable face of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, organising mass processions, rallies, and relentless legal efforts that kept the Ayodhya question at the centre of national discourse for three decades. He passed away in 2015, years before the Supreme Court's landmark 2019 verdict cleared the path for construction.

That temple — the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in Ayodhya — was consecrated in January 2024, a moment his supporters widely framed as the fulfilment of the life's work he never lived to witness. For BJP leaders and VHP circles, Singhal's legacy and the completed temple are inseparable.

A ritual of remembrance BJP leaders mark annually

Dr. Yadav's tribute follows a well-established pattern: BJP chief ministers and central leaders routinely issue public commemorations for prominent VHP and RSS figures on their birth or death anniversaries, linking their legacies explicitly to the Ram Temple's completion and the broader theme of cultural restoration. The gesture is as much political affirmation as personal reverence — a public signal of ideological continuity.

For Dr. Yadav, who governs a state with a significant Hindu pilgrimage footprint and a BJP base deeply invested in the Ayodhya narrative, the tribute carries particular resonance. It arrives on a day when similar commemorative voices from across the saffron spectrum are likely to echo across platforms.

Singhal's birth anniversary has become a quiet but consistent marker on the BJP's cultural calendar — and in 2026, with the Ayodhya temple now a standing, consecrated reality rather than a distant aspiration, the tributes carry a note of completion that earlier anniversaries never could.