NDMC House passes unanimous resolution to retain makeshift temple at Chandni Chowk

Leader of Opposition from the AAP and leader of Congress, both have signed on the resolution, he said.The decision was taken during a meeting of the NDMC House on Thursday, held at the Civic Centre here.I will go to the temple at Chandni Chowk shortly and offer my prayers to Him Lord Hanuman.

The House of the BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation on Thursday passed a unanimous resolution to retain the prefabricated Hanuman temple that had recently come up at Chandni Chowk and triggered a controversy. An old temple in Chandni Chowk was demolished in January as an ''encroachment'' under a court order. Nearly a month later, a temporary structure had come up overnight near the site on the median verge of a street, leading a war of words between the AAP and the BJP.

In the resolution passed by the NDMC House, both AAP, the principal opposition, and the Congress have given their support, North Delhi Mayor Jai Prakash said.

''We wanted to find a way to resolve this issue amicably, and with a unanimous resolution passed in the House today, we have found that way out. Leader of Opposition from the AAP and leader of Congress, both have signed on the resolution,'' he said.

The decision was taken during a meeting of the NDMC House on Thursday, held at the Civic Centre here.

''I will go to the temple at Chandni Chowk shortly and offer my prayers to Him (Lord Hanuman). We will also be writing to the Delhi government that a resolution had as been passed, and the PWD should not include this temple in its Shahjehanabad Redevelopment Project,'' he said.

On Tuesday, an ''all-party meeting'' of senior leaders of the NDMC was held to seek consensus before putting a proposal in its House for getting a ''legal status for the prefabricated steel structure, which Prakash had claimed was ''made by devotees of Ramji and Hanuman ji''.

The meeting was attended by the mayor, deputy mayor, NDMC standing committee chairman and his deputy, Leader of House Yogesh Verma, Leader of Opposition and AAP member Vikas Goel and Leader of Congress in House Mukesh Goel.

An appeal had been made to all party leaders to allow the proposal to be passed smoothly with consensus, the mayor had said.

Leader of House Verma had said the decision to bring a proposal in this regard in the House had been taken ''keeping in view the sentiments of the people''.

The mayor on Sunday had said that the corporation would explore granting ''legal status'' to the prefabricated Hanuman temple that has come up on the median verge of a street in Chandani Chowk, where a temple was demolished by authorities in January.

However, the police had initiated action in the matter.

The Delhi government's Public Works Department (PWD) on Saturday had lodged a complaint with the police seeking action on setting up of the prefabricated, steel structure by unknown people.

The Thursday resolution says that the temple will ''remain as it is there'' and ''instructions are issued to the municipal commissioner to ensure no act of dismantling is done by the civic authorities''.

The Chandni Chowk redevelopment project, carried out by the Shahjehanabad Redevelopment Corporation, led by the Delhi government in conjunction with other agencies including Delhi Metro and NDMC, seeks to beautify the nearly 1.5-km stretch of the famous street from Red Fort traffic intersection to Fatehpuri Masjid with pedestriansation norms to ease visitors.