The Bharatiya Janata Party is all set to rake up the Ayodhya issue ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly and local bodies polls in the state.

Party vice president Kalyan Singh, who earlier spearheaded the Ram temple movement, is all set to launch the party's campaign from Ayodhya on Tuesday.

While the state Assembly polls are due early in 2007, elections to local bodies would be held in October.

Kalyan Singh will set off on his mission by driving down from Lucknow to Ayodhya. He would first offer prayers at the makeshift Ram temple, erected at a disputed site over the debris of a 16th mosque, that was razed by Hindu hardliners 14 years ago.

He also proposes to address roadside meetings at several places all along the 130 km route.

"A formal announcement about launching the election campaign will be made at a press conference in Ayodhya around 5 pm Sunday," the party's state chief Keshri Nath Tripathi said on Monday.

According to party sources, Singh would reiterate the party's resolve to build the much-debated temple that has been the party's plank at successive elections over the past decade and a half.

Singh had spearheaded the Ram temple movement and was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister when the disputed Babri mosque was pulled down by Hindu hardliners who erected a makeshift temple on its debris on December 6, 1992.