Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with “salvaging Hindu community from humiliation and the revival of important but forgotten centres Hindu religion” in the country after 2014.
The Union Home Minister was speaking at foundation stone laying ceremony of a Patidar event in Ahmedabad.
“Under Modiji’s leadership since 2014, work on our forgotten centres of our faith have been without fear and with full respect,” Mr. Shah said, referring to the Prime Minister’s constituency of Varanasi, Kedarnath and other pilgrimage sites.
According to him, the religions pilgrimage centres of Hindu’s like the Kashi Vishwanath temple, destroyed during the Aurangzeb’s rein, have been restored to full glory by the Prime Minister. Mr Modi will inaugurate it on December 13.
“For decades, our faith centres and temples remained neglected or forgotten but now things have changed,” Mr Shah said while thanking the Patidar community for laying the foundation of a grand temple of their deity in Ahmedabad.
“Earlier, people visiting temples used to feel a sense of shame but now under Modi Ji, a new era has began when he performed maha arti at Varanasi,” he added.
The Home Minister spoke at length about the destruction of Hindu temples and centres of faiths during the long Muslim rule and stressed that because of faith, those centres which were destroyed several hundred years ago are being reconstructed.
During his speech, the Home Minister also lavished praise on the contribution of the Patidar community in the country and abroad and said that he would return to inaugurate the temple when it was completed.
The Minister said temples also served as community service centres and contributed in services for the community.
Besides laying foundation for a temple, he also inaugurated development projects in his constituency, Gandhinagar.
