All 4 Gates Of Puri Jagannath Temple Reopened For Devotees; Odisha CM & Ministers Offer Prayers

Puri: All four gates of Shree Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s pilgrim town of Puri, which were kept closed since the COVID-19 pandemic, were thrown open for devotees on Thursday after ‘Mangala Alati’ of the sibling deities. 

Chief Minister Mohan Charan Manjhi, along with his ministers, Puri MP Sambit Patra, Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi and other leaders also arrived at the temple in the morning and paid obeisance to the Lords. They also performed ‘Parikrama’ of the 12th-centtury temple.

Majhi ,who was sworn in as CM of BJP government, in its first Cabinet meeting approved a proposal to re-open all four gates of temple early on Thursday morning and set up a corpus fund for it.

Addressing the media after his temple visit, the CM said, “We had proposed to open all the four gates of Jagannath Temple in yesterday’s cabinet meeting keeping in mind sentiments of the devotees and their convenience. The proposal was passed and today at 6:30 am, I along with my MLAs and Puri MP (Sambit Patra) attended the ‘Mangala Alati’.”

“Appropriate security measures and steps will be taken for hassle-free darshan at the Srimandir. For the development of the Jagannath Temple and other works, we have proposed a fund in the cabinet. When we present the next state budget, we will allot a corpus fund of Rs 500 crore for the temple management,” he added.

Cabinet minister Suresh Pujari said a detailed report has been sought to know why the three gates of the temple have not been reopened after the pandemic.

Opening all the temple gates was a key promise in the BJP’s election manifesto.