No Complaint From Rashtrapati Bhawan On Disrespect To First Lady: Chief Secy

Bhubaneswar/Puri: The alleged inappropriate behaviour by some servitors towards Savita Kovind, wife of President Ram Nath Kovind, took a new turn with Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Thursday denying receiving any such complaint from the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Talking to mediapersons at the State Secretariat here, the chief secretary said he does not have anything else to add since the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) had already issued a clarification in this regard.

“Since the temple administration has not received any letter from the Rashtrapati Bhawan regarding the incident, the matter should end there,” SJTA chief administrator Pradipta Mohapatra told mediapersons in Puri earlier in the day.

Informing the media about the issue, Puri SP Sarthak Sarangi said a letter was sent by the Rashtrapati Bhawan to the district collector asking him to ensure that no servitor would meet him or request him to sign on any book during his visit to the Jagannath temple.

“Though the temple administration had informed the servitors about this, some of them tried to meet the President by breaching the security cordon. In this connection, we had submitted a report to the temple administration,” he pointed out.

These statements have created further confusion about the incident as the proceedings of Temple Managing Committee meeting on March 20 clearly mention about a letter from the Rashtrapati Bhawan expressing displeasure about the incident.

According to the complaint by the Rashtrapati Bhawan Communique, three servitors had allegedly misbehaved with Savita Kovind, while she was offering prayers inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple on March 18. The Khuntia Mekap Sevayats present there allegedly did not allow the President and his wife in and brushed against them.

In his reaction Assistant Secretary of Daitapati Nijog Binayak Dasmohapatra had said if such an incident had taken place, the police should have arrested the three servitors immediately. “Why did the temple administration and the police did not take action? Why did the temple administration not make the incident public after the meeting on March 20? It is now clear that the temple administration is trying to malign the entire servitor community,” he had maintained.