Odisha Govt Must Open Lord Jagannath’s Ratna Bhandar & Tell People If Valuables Are Safe, Says BJP

Bhubaneswar: Stepping up its attack on the ruling BJD over the missing key of the Ratna Bhandar of Puri Jagannath Temple, BJP on Monday said the Odisha government must open the chamber and check if the valuables including precious jewellery are safe and intact.

Addressing a press meet in Bhubaneswar, BJP spokesperson Pitambar Acharya said since the state government claims that a duplicate key of the Ratna Bhandar exists, it should use the same to open the chamber to ascertain its condition instead of criticising people for raising the issue.

The state government has been evasive on the issue of Ratna Bhandar and its missing keys instead of presenting facts before the people, he claimed.

Stating that the Ratna Bhandar of the 12^th century shrine was opened and inventory done in 1978, Acharya said steps should be taken to ascertain if the same precious itsms exist. It was found that 43,640 gram gold, 1,48,780 and other precious items were there in Ratna Bhandar that time, he claimed.

Coming down heavily on the state government, the BJP leader asked it to tell people as to who was responsible for the disappearance of the key of the Ratna Bhandar inner chamber. Instead of criticising people for raising the issue, the government must take steps to ensure the safety of Ratna Bhandar, he said.

The state government should also tell the public about the steps taken based on the report submitted by Justice Raghubir Das Commission of Inquiry which probed the missing key episode, Acharya said, adding that the Commission report and the action taken by the government must be made public forthwith.

He also sought to know as to why the state government is not opening the inner chamber even after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in an affidavit to the Orissa High Court mentioned that urgent repair work is required. People have also raised doubt over the safety of the precious ornaments stored in the ratna bhandar, he said.

The BJD government had further fuelled the doubt about the safety of the Ratna Bhandar by not making the Commission report of the inquiry commission public.

He demanded a fresh inventory of valuables in the treasure house as there is mystery about the quantity and the condition of the precious ornaments stored there.

The ratna bhandar of Jagannath Temple has an outer and inner chamber. The outer chamber has three keys and is opened regularly to fetch ornaments for the sibling deities during the Suna Besha – a key ritual during the annual Rath Yatra and certain other occasions. The three keys of the outer chamber are in the custody of the erstwhile royal family of Puri, which looked after the temple affairs for generations, along with the Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) and Bhandar Mekap, the servitor who looks after the treasury.

The contents of the inner chamber — whose keys have been missing — are not in public domain. According to reports, the last inventory of ratna bhandar was done between May 13 and July 23, 1978. Though it was opened again on July 14, 1985, no fresh inventory was done.

According to a reply given by the then Law Minister Pratap Jena in the Assembly in April 2018, the Ratna Bhandar had 12,831 bhari (one bhari equals to 11.66gm) of gold ornaments with precious stones and 22,153 bhari of silver utensils as per the list prepared by the temple administration after in the 1978 inventory. There were certain other ornaments which could not be weighed during the inventory process.