At the Vishwa Sanatan Mahapeeth’s proclamation and Shila Pujan ceremony in Haridwar — attended by several far-right religious leaders — Mahamandaleshwar Harichetna Maharaj claimed that saints have played the most significant role in stopping religious conversions. He praised Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami for actions against “land jihad,” “love jihad,” and for shutting down madrasas, urging other states to adopt similar measures, saying only then “Sanatan will be seen across the nation.” Devkinandan Thakur questioned why a “Sanatan Board” cannot be formed if a Waqf Board exists, and criticised Hindu parents for sending their children to English-medium schools while, according to him, Muslim and Christian children study their religious texts in madrasas and convent schools. He claimed that if Hindu children had stronger knowledge of Sanatan Dharma, then, like Ayodhya, Kashi Vishwanath, and Krishna Janmbhoomi temple would have been established too. He also referred to the recent Sanatan Hindu Ekta Padyatra and demanded that all Hindu religious and pilgrimage sites be declared free of meat and alcohol. Religious preacher Anirudhacharya referenced the Bollywood film PK, alleging that Bollywood promotes “love jihad.” BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay repeated the anti-Muslim conspiracy theories of “love jihad,” “land jihad,” and forced conversions, and called for “freedom from Rohingya and Bangladeshi ghuspaithiya (infiltrators), demographic change, and bomb blast conspiracies.”
At the inauguration of the Vishva Sanatan Mahapeeth Temple, BJP leader and Supreme Court lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay fearmongered about Hindu population decline, claimed Hindus “don’t exist in 25% of India,” alleged “5 crore infiltrators” were inside the country, and spread conspiracies of “love jihad,” “land jihad,” “drug jihad,” “infiltration jihad,” “religious conversion jihad,” and “population jihad.”