Puri: Visiting West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee visited Jagannath temple in Odisha’s Puri town on Wednesday and offered prayers to the sibling deities in the 12th century shrine.
Mamata’s family priest Jagannath Swain Mahapatra performed the special rituals for her in the temple. A special puja was performed for around 20 minutes inside the sanctum sanctorum as the visiting leader paid obeisance to deities.
The Bengal CM also witnessed the fashioning of the flag on 214 feet high ‘Nilachakra’ and offered prayers to goddess Vimala, Mahalaxmi and other deities on the shrine premises. She spent around an hour inside the complex.
Emerging out of the temple after darshan, Mamata, an ardent devotee of Lord Jagannath, expressed her happiness and thanked all for extending cooperation during her visit to the temple where she had a smooth darshan.
Emphasising that a close bond exists between Odisha and Bengal, Mamata said a large number of people visit the seaside pilgrim town of Puri for darshan of Lord Jagannath and enjoying the beach.
The West Bengal Chief Minister was presented an idol of Lord Jagannath by after her visit to the temple.
It it pertinent to mention that the Bengal CM had visited the Puri temple in 2017. Hours before the 2021 WB poll schedules were announced by the Election Commission of India, a group of priests from the 12th-century shrine in Puri had performed a yagna at Mamata’s residence in Kolkata.
The Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) in consultation with the servitor had rescheduled the timings of afternoon rituals to morning in the shrine to facilitate her visit in the afternoon. As a result, the temple remained closed for devotees for five hours in the morning.
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