CM Yogi pays tribute to Ashok Singhal on 1990 Ayodhya firing anniversary

Key Takeaways

CM Yogi Adityanath posted a tribute in Hindi on 27 September 2026 honouring Ashok Singhal , the longtime VHP leader.

The tribute recalls the 2 November 1990 incident in Ayodhya when kar sevaks chanting Ram's name faced lathi charges and gunfire.

Singhal is credited with stepping forward defiantly to lead the movement through that moment of state repression.

The post is part of recurring BJP and VHP commemorations that link the 1990 events to the eventual construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya .

Ashok Singhal, who passed away in November 2015 , had spearheaded the VHP's Ram Janmabhoomi campaign since the 1980s, including the 1989 shilanyas ceremony.

Thirty-six years after kar sevaks chanting Ram's name were met with lathi charges and live fire in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has invoked the memory of the man who stood defiant in that moment — Vishva Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal. The post, shared on Sunday, 27 September 2026, marks the approach of the 2 November 1990 anniversary and frames Singhal as the moral anchor of a movement that ultimately saw a Ram temple rise at Ayodhya.

Posting in Hindi, CM Yogi wrote: 'जब 2 नवंबर, 1990 को राम नाम की धुन गाते हुए रामभक्तों पर बर्बर लाठी चार्ज और गोलियों की बौछार होती है, तब उसका मुकाबला करने के लिए कोई सीना तानकर सामने आया था, तो वह नाम था — श्रद्धेय अशोक सिंघल जी का...' ('When, on 2 November 1990, Ram devotees singing in the name of Ram faced a brutal lathi charge and a hail of bullets, the one who stepped forward with chest bared to confront it bore a single name — the revered Ashok Singhal ji...')

Who Ashok Singhal was — and why the date matters

Ashok Singhal served for decades as the foremost organisational face of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Hindu nationalist body founded in 1964 that engineered and sustained the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign through court battles, street mobilisation, and repeated kar seva gatherings at Ayodhya, the city in Uttar Pradesh held by devotees to be Lord Rama's birthplace. It was Singhal who coordinated the VHP's shilanyas ceremony in 1989 — the formal laying of foundation-related rituals — that signalled the movement's transition from petition to action. He passed away in November 2015, before the Supreme Court's landmark 2019 verdict awarded the disputed site for temple construction. 2 November 1990 sits at the most charged node of that history. Kar sevaks had converged on Ayodhya in large numbers, and the state administration — then under a different government — deployed force to prevent them from reaching the disputed structure. The episode generated deep political reverberations that VHP and BJP leaders have revisited in commemoration every year since.

How BJP's Ayodhya memory-work connects to present governance

CM Yogi's post is part of a consistent pattern in which UP's ruling dispensation links the sacrifices of the 1990 movement to the temple's eventual realisation — positioning the BJP not merely as a political party but as the inheritor of a decades-long civilisational pledge. With the Ram temple in Ayodhya now consecrated and the city being developed as a major pilgrimage and tourism hub under state government plans, such commemorations serve to anchor present-day governance decisions in a longer moral narrative. The VHP, meanwhile, continues to mark 2 November as a day of remembrance for the kar sevaks who fell. Yogi Adityanath, who heads the Gorakhnath Math and has been personally steeped in the Ayodhya movement's religious vocabulary since before he entered electoral politics, gives that remembrance an added institutional weight when he speaks from the Chief Minister's chair. Singhal's legacy, as CM Yogi frames it, is one of courage under state coercion — a leader who absorbed the blow so the movement could survive. That framing will only deepen as November 2 draws closer and state-level commemorations take shape.

Point of View

Yogi ties the BJP's current stewardship of Ayodhya — now a consecrated temple city — to a lineage of sacrifice. The timing, weeks before the 2 November anniversary, is unlikely to be accidental: it primes the commemorative cycle and sustains the emotional resonance of the Ayodhya narrative as a living political force, not a settled historical chapter.

NationPress

27 Sept 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Ashok Singhal and what role did he play in the Ayodhya movement?

Ashok Singhal was the top organisational leader of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the principal coordinator of the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. He oversaw the 1989 shilanyas ceremony at Ayodhya and remained central to the movement's mobilisation until his death in November 2015.

What happened on 2 November 1990 in Ayodhya?

On 2 November 1990, kar sevaks who had gathered at Ayodhya chanting Ram's name faced a police crackdown that included lathi charges and firing. The episode became a defining — and deeply contested — moment in the history of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

Why is CM Yogi Adityanath paying tribute to Ashok Singhal now?

The tribute, posted on 27 September 2026, appears timed to mark the approach of the 2 November anniversary of the 1990 crackdown, part of a recurring annual cycle of BJP and VHP commemorations of that event.

What is the Vishva Hindu Parishad's connection to the Ram temple in Ayodhya?

The VHP, founded in 1964, was the primary organisation that led the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign for decades. It formed the Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yagna Samiti in 1984 and conducted the 1989 shilanyas. The Supreme Court in 2019 awarded the site for temple construction, which was subsequently consecrated.

What is Yogi Adityanath's personal connection to the Ayodhya movement?

Yogi Adityanath is the head of the Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur and has been deeply involved in the religious and cultural dimensions of the Ayodhya movement since before his political career. As Chief Minister, he has overseen the development of Ayodhya as a pilgrimage and tourism hub following the temple's consecration.