New Delhi: Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra’s decision to conduct a Hindu religious programme at the Raj Bhavan – his official residence – has run into controversy. The event began on Saturday, August 27.The event, a ‘Ram Katha’ will be overseen by a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, Indian Express has reported. This is the first time that a Ram Katha event is being held in the official building.“Every day of the programme, a katha vachak, or narrator of holy text, named Vijay Kaushal will read the Ram Katha daily from 4 pm to 7 pm,” the news outlet reported. Kaushal has been described as a former Sangh pracharak, something that Mishra too was, at one point.Before Saturday’s event began, the report said, Mishra himself conducted rituals of the Hindu deity Ram and the Ramcharitmanas. BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Ghanshyam Tiwari and BJP MP from Jaipur Ramcharan Bohra were in attendance. The Congress government in the state has not commented on the event, which is open to the public.An exhibition of devotional art work was also inaugurated.The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties has released a statement noting that organising the event at the governor’s official residence will violate constitutional provisions and has appealed to Mishra to shift it outside the premises, Times of India has reported.PUCL Rajasthan president Kavita Srivastava said in a statement quoted by Express that such an event goes “against the dignity of his (Mishra’s) constitutional post to organise a religious ceremony in the Raj Bhavan”, and added that it was against “secular values enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution”.PUCL’s general secretary Anand Bhatnagar is also a signatory to the statement.