Hindu Mandir: India’s Prime Minister Modi opens an Abu Dhabi temple

Indian leader Narendra Modi opened a big Hindu temple in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during a two-day visit to the country.

The BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi was built on a 27-acre plot given by the UAE government.

India said it would build something when Mr Modi went to UAE in 2018.

Experts believe that the temple will probably support the government’s Hindu nationalist goals before the upcoming general elections in two months.

Mr Modi opened a big temple for the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya, which is in northern India, a few weeks ago. In 1992, a 16th-century mosque was destroyed by Hindu mobs, which caused violent riots and led to the death of nearly 2,000 people. It has now been replaced.

The temple in Abu Dhabi is managed by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha. It is a group that promotes Hindu beliefs and values such as faith, service, and global peace.

The organization has been around for 200 years and is based in Mr. Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

Pew research center says there are 660,000 Hindus in the UAE. Although temples have existed in the UAE for many years, it is said that this is the first one to be constructed using traditional methods.

The temple was built in Dubai using pink sandstone from Rajasthan state and white Italian marble that was carved in India.

It is 108ft tall, 262ft long, and 180ft wide. It was built for 7 billion rupees ($84. 2 million)

India and UAE are good friends and trade $85 billion (£67. 6 billion) worth of goods between each other. Indians are the largest group of people living in another country. Many Indian Hindus live in Abu Dhabi.

Mr Modi is in the country to join a meeting of world leaders called the World Governments Summit.

He met with the president of the UAE on Tuesday during his visit. The Indian government’s foreign affairs department said that two countries agreed to a deal to invest in each other’s economies and work together on economic matters.

The agreements are meant to make cooperation stronger in energy security, trade, and building digital infrastructure.

Mr Modi talked to a group of Indian people in Abu Dhabi and thanked the UAE president for giving land for the temple.