This is the second of a two-part series from Ayodhya examining the functioning of the Ram temple trust from the lens of local residents who interacted with the trustees and are familiar with its functioning and its former secretary, Champat Rai. Read the first part.
Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh): It is during a recent interview with journalist Abhishek Upadhyay on June 9, 2026, for his YouTube channel, Top Secret, that a former accountant with the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, Mahipal Singh, laid bare the flawed accounting process – with no mechanism for daily audit or accountability – at Hindutva’s marquee temple in Ayodhya.
Singh said during the course of this interview that the alleged theft of temple donations came to his attention in 2021. He also said that he had reached out to both Champat Rai and Gopal Rao – the secretary and invitee member of the trust, who have since resigned and been asked not to attend meetings, respectively – but his pleas led nowhere. Instead, he said, he was subtly asked to leave by another trustee, Anil Mishra, who had inducted a new person in Mahipal’s place.
In Ayodhya, this reporter met a local resident, familiar with the trustees, who had been in touch with whistleblower Mahipal Singh in 2022, shortly before he left his job at the temple. Singh had shared his ordeal with this person, describing how he was witness to the corruption within the temple administration four years ago.
Singh’s family was close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak...
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