The rise of Champat Rai: From chemistry lecturer to Ram Mandir power centre

AWalking cyclopedia of all things Ayodhya, Champat Rai’s fitting as the superior general secretarial assistant of the Shri pound Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust in 2020 was seen as a reward for his commitment to the Ram temple cause.On Friday, he reportedly resigned from the post after investigators probing alleged misappropriation of donations to the temple arrested a former aide.Before this apparent downfall, the 79-year-old, Bijnor-born Rai had become the ultimate insider in Ayodhya, connected with all prominent sadhus and conversant with various aspects of the temple town, according to people familiar with his career.The journey started as a chemistry lecturer at the RSM Degree College in Dhampur, Bijnor. In 1977, when the Emergency was in force, he was arrested in his college while giving a lecture for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; he was jailed for 18 months. After he was released, he walked away from teaching and joined the VHP in 1980.Also Read | Ram Mandir donation case: Who are the 8 arrested? from trust aide to cash-counting staffHe became a close aide of the then VHP president Ashok Singhal and was deputed to the Awadh region to mobilise youth for the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.He strengthened the Sangh network in Agra, Dehradun and Haridwar, with Ayodhya becoming his centre of gravity. Those who worked with him in the 1980s and 90s call him the “encyclopedia of Ayodhya”. He knew its alleys, its litigations and its property records. When the Ram Janmabhoomi title suit reached the courts, Rai became the man lawyers turned to.He supplied the documents, traced the revenue maps, and reconstructed oral histories. As a result, the title “Record Keeper of Ram Lalla” stuck.In the 1980s, he was a second-rung leader of the Ram temple movement.He also had close contacts with BJP leaders across generations. On December 6, 1992, he was among the karsevaks in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was demolished.The CBI named him in its chargesheet for criminal conspiracy. Nearly three decades later, in September 2020, a Lucknow court acquitted him and all other accused.When the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on the title suit on November 9, 2019, paving the way for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Rai’s decades of work placed him at the heart of the new structure.He became the operational head of the Ram temple project.From the bhoomi pujan on August 5, 2020, to the grand opening on January 22, 2024, Champat Rai was the key man, virtually the de facto chairman of the Trust as Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, the chairman of the Trust, was ailing.During the construction of the Ram temple, Rai briefed media persons about the progress of work, cleared design files, and coordinated with engineers from Larsen & Toubro.In 2021, he led the nationwide ‘Nidhi Samarpan Abhiyan’, a donation drive that the Trust says collected over ₹2,000 crore for the temple.Two years after the temple was consecrated, Rai was again thrust into the spotlight after a Samajwadi Party leader alleged that donations were siphoned off from temple offerings. Whether this marks the culmination of his association with Ayodhya remains to be seen.