Ayodhya has travelled far — from a contested heritage site to what India's Vice President is now calling an international city. On Saturday, 7 November 2026, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath shared remarks by Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan on the transformed skyline and stature of the ancient pilgrimage town, amplifying the tribute on X with a video clip.

Quoting the Vice President directly, CM Yogi's post reads: 'Both our Prime Minister and Chief Minister have made Ayodhya an international city.' The remark credits both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for steering the city's dramatic makeover — a joint attribution that underscores how centrally the Ayodhya project has been framed as a shared political and cultural mission between New Delhi and Lucknow.

From Supreme Court verdict to international ambition

The transformation VP Radhakrishnan references did not happen overnight. The Ram Mandir inauguration in January 2024 — performed by PM Modi following a landmark Supreme Court verdict — was the event that formally announced Ayodhya's reinvention to the world. What followed was a cascade of infrastructure investment: a new Ayodhya International Airport, widened ghats, a redesigned pilgrim town centre, and upgraded road and rail connectivity meant to handle tens of millions of annual visitors.

The Uttar Pradesh government under CM Yogi had simultaneously pushed forward urban redevelopment plans — lighting, landscaping, heritage corridors — that recast the city not merely as a religious destination but as a cultural and tourism hub comparable to what Varanasi experienced under the same political administration. The Ayodhya model, in many ways, is a continuation of that playbook, scaled up further.

Why VP Radhakrishnan's words land the way they do

The Vice President occupies a largely ceremonial but constitutionally significant office, and his public praise carries the weight of institutional endorsement. By sharing the clip, CM Yogi is doing something deliberate: placing Ayodhya's transformation inside a national narrative — not a state project, not a party achievement alone, but a civilisational milestone acknowledged at the very top of the republic's hierarchy.

The broader pattern is consistent. Central and state governments have prioritised redevelopment of major religious sites — Ayodhya, Varanasi, Kedarnath — as anchors for heritage tourism and soft-power projection. Each city is being positioned as a living cultural brand, drawing pilgrims, tourists, and international attention simultaneously.

With more tourism infrastructure in the pipeline and Ayodhya increasingly on the itineraries of diaspora visitors and foreign delegations, the question is no longer whether the city has changed — it's how wide the circle of that change will grow.