Out in the cold, why BJP firebrand Vinay Katiyar is eyeing Ayodhya run for comeback

Veteran BJP leader Vinay Katiyar’s residences in Lucknow and Ayodhya have again started buzzing with political activities now. For Katiyar has held a series of meetings with BJP activists and his supporters in his houses in recent weeks.

The Sangh Parivar members who have attended these meetings include those who have played a role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement before and after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and faced police action in the 1990s.

Former Bajrang Dal president Katiyar, 71, was one of the most prominent leaders of this movement for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. He had also been a BJP MP in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha for multiple terms. However, for the past several years, the firebrand leader has found himself in a political wilderness.

Several meetings have taken place at Katiyar’s residence, called “Hindu Dham”, at Ramkot in Ayodhya since last month after the newly-elected Uttar Pradesh BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary visited him at his Lucknow house on December 22, just days after taking charge of the party. Like Katiyar, Chaudhary also belongs to the Kurmi community (OBC).

Chaudhary held a closed-door meeting with Katiyar for over two hours, which was later termed a “courtesy meet” by the latter.

BJP sources said this meeting was part of Chaudhary’s attempts to “galvanise Kurmi party leaders who are currently not active”. “Katiyar might have got signals from Chaudhary to start his political activity and connect to his supporters,” sources said. Chaudhary was known to be close to Katiyar in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the latter was one of the BJP’s leading faces from UP.

In recent years Katiyar used to stay mostly at his Lucknow home. But, for the past two weeks, said some of his close aides, he has shifted his base entirely to his residence in Ayodhya town.

Last Tuesday, Rajya Sabha MP and ex-state BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai visited Katiyar at his Ayodhya home along with local leaders. Bajpai, who had also been sidelined for over a decade, was sent to the Rajya Sabha by the party recently.

Following this meeting, Katiyar told local media that he will contest the 2027 UP Assembly election from the Ayodhya constituency.

He echoed it while speaking with The Indian Express, saying “Yes, I will contest from Ayodhya on the BJP ticket in the upcoming Assembly election.”

This would be his debut in the Assembly election. When asked if he has held discussion with the BJP leadership in this regard, he said, “It is for them to decide.”

Interestingly, the Ayodhya Assembly seat is currently represented by the BJP’s Ved Prakash Gupta, who had won it on the party’s ticket in 2017 too.

A BJP leader from Ayodhya said Katiyar had not been meeting his supporters in the BJP, Bajrang Dal and VHP over the past 7-8 years. “He had even stopped visiting these organisations or Ram Temple Trust, and was not seen around the Ram Temple construction site, during this period,” he said.

The Ram Temple, which was consecrated in January 2024, has now been completed.

The BJP leader said things seemed to have changed for Katiyar as he himself sent a message to his supporters for a meeting a day before he announced his candidature. “Leaving them surprised, Katiyar held discussions with them over tea and snacks about his return to active politics,” he said.

Katiyar had been one of the most aggressive faces of the Ram Temple movement, who was the founder head of the Bajrang Dal. He was named the UP BJP president in 2002, even as he has also served as the party’s national general secretary and vice president.

Katiyar won from the Faizabad (Ayodhya) Lok Sabha seat for consecutive three terms – 1991, 1996 and 1999.

He also contested the 2006 Lok Sabha by-election from Rae Bareli, but lost to top Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. He was also a two-term Rajya Sabha MP since 2006, which ended in 2018.

In September last year, a controversy had erupted over Katiyar’s remarks that no mosque would be allowed to be built in Ayodhya and that Muslims should leave Ayodhya and migrate to other districts “across the Saryu river” in UP.

The Samajwadi Party’s Ayodhya MP Awadhesh Prasad had then slammed him, saying the country belongs to people of all faiths. “Vinay Katiyar is a senior BJP leader but he is being sidelined and ignored in the Modi government. He has thus made these remarks out of disappointment and frustration,” Prasad had said.

Within the BJP circles too, Katiyar’s attempts were then seen as his bid to “return to the limelight” as part of his bid for “a comeback in UP BJP politics”.