Bijay Flays Delay In Reconstitution Of Puri Jagannath Temple Managing Committee

Bhubaneswar: Senior BJP leader Bijay Mohapatra on Friday came down heavily on the Odisha government for reconstituting Srimandir Managing Committee after a gap of eight months.

“It is a matter of utter shame that the state government has reconstituted the Srimandir Managing Committee which should have been done eight months ago. The inordinate delay in the reconstitution of the committee was due to the conspiracy of a group of senior bureaucrats,” Mohapatra told media persons here.

Talking about the highhanded attitude of the officials of the Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), he said though Raghunath Mohapatra is one of the members of the Srimandir Managing Committee, he is not allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to oversee the repair work.

Stating that the state government is not bothered about the reforms in the management of temple affairs, Mohapatra wanted to know as to why the state government has not taken any step till date to extend the tenure of the Justice BP Das Commission on Shri Jagannath temple reforms. “Let the state government make it stand clear on this issue,” he demanded.

The BJP leader further said that the former President of India Pranab Mukherjee during his recent visit to Puri had proposed the state government to urge the Centre to open a special branch office of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to look after the conservation and maintenance of the Shri Jagannath Temple. But the state government has not taken any step in this regard as of now.

Referring to the gross mismanagement that had taken place during Nabakalebara Rath Yatra, Mohapatra said that the state government is yet to make it public and instead has kept the report under the carpet.

“I fail to understand the intention of the state government in not presenting the Nabakalebara Rath Yatra report in the State Assembly,” he wondered.

It may be mentioned that the Law Department on Thursday had released the names of the 10-member Sri Jagannath Temple Managing Committee through a gazette notification.

The members nominated to the Committee are Siddheswar Mohapatra, Madhab Pujapanda, Nilakantha Mohapatra, Madhab Chandra Mohapatra, Ananta Kumar Tiadi, Rama Das Mohapatra, Sachidananda Das Maharaj, Bijaya Sahu, Raghunath Mohapatra and Mahimohan Tripathy.

As usual, Puri Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb is the permanent Chairman of the Managing Committee.

The notification was released under Section 6 of Sri Jagannath Temple Act, 1954 (Odisha Act 11 of 1955).

The tenure of the earlier committee had ended on July 23 last year.

As per rules, the state government reconstitutes the Srimandir managing committee every three years.