Bengaluru, Jan 11 : Union Minister for Mine, Coal, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Pralhad Joshi on Thursday said that the Congress party's decision not to attend the Ram mandir inauguration was taken out of fear of losing minority votes. Earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had released a press statement and put out a social media post supporting the Congress party's decision not to attend the inauguration of the Ram mandir. Reacting to the statement, Union Minister Joshi stated in Bengaluru, 'They have rejected the invitation fearing loss of minority votes. They had not attended the inauguration of the Somnath temple. People are observing the height of appeasement politics by the Congress party.' Further, rebutting CM Siddaramaiah on social media, Joshi stated, 'Mr. Siddaramaiah it is not a rally being conducted by the Congress party, which was founded by a foreign national, which is being held in Ayodhya. It is a programme of the installation of the statue of Sri Ram who represents the devotion of 140 crore Indians.' 'Those who have faith in Sri Ram will visit the temple without bothering about politics. You have come to power through false assurances and in order to hide the failures of governance, you should not bring these futile matters to the forefront. Not only the state, the whole nation is seeing which direction your false government is moving in,' he charged. /IANS