New Delhi, Dec. 8: Narendra Modi faces a temple test – in Russia.

A soured temple-for-church exchange pact between New Delhi and Moscow has added an unlikely edge to the Prime Minister’s scheduled talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

India will demand that Russia offer permanent land for a temple in Moscow after the city’s sole Hindu shrine was demolished last December despite a deal between Putin and Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh to save it, senior officials confirmed to The Telegraph.

The agreement, reached after Singh’s Moscow visit last October, involved India clearing the construction of a Russian Orthodox church in the heart of Lutyens Delhi in exchange for Moscow allowing the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) temple to stay.

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