The rally in Delhi on Sunday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Dec. 30: The Sangh parivar today almost recreated the Ramjanmabhoomi frenzy at its Ram setu rally here, but the original temple hero was missing.

L.K. Advani stayed away from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad programme — and so did the BJP’s man of the moment, Narendra Modi, whose Gujarat triumph clearly spurred the trident-waving rallyists.

But other top party leaders turned out along with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh brass and hundreds of monks, who made fiery speeches as rallyists in saffron headbands screamed updated versions of the 1992 Babri demolition slogans.

Modi’s charisma still hovered over the gathering, with many in the audience fondly referring to him and declaring him the party’s future leader.

The speakers, almost all of them religious leaders, avoided taking the names of politicians other than Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, who were used as punching bags. But one sadhu broke the code by openly saying that making Modi the Prime Minister would cure all the problems of Hindu society.

A message from Atal Bihari Vajpayee was read out from the dais, but there was no mention of Advani.

Among the BJP leaders present were Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Murli Manohar Joshi and chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh and B.C. Khanduri. Modi, the party’s only other chief minister, was in Delhi yesterday but chose to leave last night.

The initial impression was that Advani would join the rally after returning from Shimla, where he was attending the Dhumal government’s swearing-in. But he did not turn up.

Advani’s careful strategy to avoid the Parishad function was also reflected in the omission of the setu controversy in a statement he released from Chandigarh on the important events of 2007.

“If I look back at the political developments in the country during the year that is about to end, I see five broad features,” the statement said.

These were: the BJP victories in the states, the outcome of the Uttar Pradesh elections, the alleged political back-stabbing in Karnataka, and what Advani saw as the erosion of the Prime Minister’s authority and the Centre’s bad governance as reflected in price rise and terror attacks.

The rally, however, almost created a déjà vu of the Ayodhya movement. A sea of monks, among them the vitriolic Sadhvi Rithambara, spouted the same rhetoric of persecution of Hindus. The familiar symbols — tridents, saffron robes, headbands and aggressive slogans against Babar — were all there.

Praveen Togadia recalled how a mob had pulled down the Babri Masjid in four hours and asked the government to show whether it was with “Ram or haram”.

The crowd roared a 1992 slogan, replacing the temple with the setu: “Bachcha, bachcha Ram ka/Ram setu ke kaam ka (every child is Ram’s, committed to the bridge).”

The Parishad got the resolution to save the setu endorsed by leaders from other religions, too. A Buddhist preacher, a Jain muni and a Sikh priest were on the dais to support the cause.

Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, the lone politician allowed to speak, said Jayalalithaa supported the setu cause because she was an Indian and not a “vishkanya (poisonous woman) from Italy”. He read out a message from her.