For the January 22 'Pran Pratishtha' or idol consecration ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya, the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has decided to invite not only seers, priests and religious leaders from across the country but also former and current administrative officers and journalists, who were posted in Ayodhya region around 1992.

Addressing a press conference in Ayodhya, the secretary of the Trust, Champat Rai, the guest list for the Pran Pratishtha has been 'carefully crafted' and includes industrialists, scientists, actors, army officers to Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardees among others.

The guest list includes Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, Baba Ramdev, industrialists Gautam Adani of the Adani Group, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, Natarajan Chandrasekaran of the Tata Group, S N Subrahmanyan of the L&T Group, actors Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Arun Govil, who played Ram in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan TV series, film director Madhur Bhandarkar, lyricist Prasoon Joshi among others.

'Four thousand saints have been invited, representing different traditions across the country, from every state — right from Arunachal Pradesh to Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Andaman Nicobar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh. Religious leaders of 125 different sects have been invited, mahants of 13 Akhadas, acharyas of six darshan, Shankaracharyas to Baba Ramdev and Amma of Kerala Maa Amrtanandamayi to Dalai Lama and Rahul Bodhi from Mumbai,' said Rai.

The guest list also includes Director of ISRO's Space Application Centre Nilesh M Desai, CBRI scientist Debi Dutta, who according to Rai did the homework to ensure that on Ram Navami, the sunlight would directly fall on the forehead of the Ram Lalla statue.

Stating that the guest list has been prepared after much deliberations, Rai said representatives from sports, scientists, media houses, and veteran journalists who were active between 1984 and 1992 have all been invited.

Retired officials of UP Police, who were posted in Ayodhya in 1992 including 'then DIG' would be invited as guests for Ram Temple Pran Pratishtha,' Rai added. He said that only 25 RSS office bearers and not more than 100 people from Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been invited.