Baripada: After a brief hiatus, servitors of Jagannath temple in Baripada again raised the demand for ‘Dwitiya Srikshetra’ status to the shrine. They accused the revenue minister of reneging on his promise and have decided to go on a ‘padyatra’ to Bhubaneswar to press for the demand before Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Notably, the servitors met the Chief Minister at the state Secretariat June 29 and put forth 11 demands before him.
The Chief Minister had assured them to consider their demands. It was then stated that after Rath Yatra was over, a meeting chaired by Law Minister Pratap Jena would be held in Bhubaneswar July 17 in the presence of servitors, Mayurbhanj Collector, sub-Collector and other officials. The servitors were assured that the Chief Minister would visit Baripada after their demands are fulfilled.
The servitors lamented before media persons that as per decision during the meeting with the Chief Minister, the next meeting had not been convened by the Law Minister July 17.
Later the servitors were told that in view of the Patkura elections, the meeting would be held between July 20 and 25.
“The time has lapsed and the law minister had misled us on the promises,” they rued.
Servitors namely Arun Kumar Mishra, Kameswar Tripathy, Jayant Kumar Tripathy, Debakant Panda, Radhashyam Mohapatra, Madanmohan Rana, Daitari Barik and Rabinarayan Dwivedy met Collector Vineet Bhardwaj Thursday over the issue.
They submitted a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister through the Collector.
“If no step is taken to fulfill our demands by July 28, we will start ‘padyatra’ to Bhubaneswar at 8.30 am July 29,” they said.
It may be noted here that the Chief Minister first had a darshan of deities in the temple April 25 before the general elections.
The servitors launched a ‘padyatra’ to Bhubaneswar June 19 and had even crossed several kilometres. Later, Revenue and Disaster Management minister Sudam Marndi and Baripada sub-Collector Dibyajyoti Parida stalled the ‘padyatra’ after assuring them of immediate steps.
The servitors said that Baripada Jagannath temple has its own specialty as Rath Yatra usually begins here a day after it starts at Puri.
Another peculiar tradition is here that only women are entitled to pull the chariot of Devi Shubhadra. People have been calling it ‘Dwitiya Srikshetra’, but the government has not recognised it, they lamented.
During the first visit of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to Baripada Jagannath temple, the servitors had submitted a memorandum to him.
Their demands included appointment of an officer of magistrate rank for the endowment department, appointment of servitors in mutts and temples, measures to streamline the rituals, reclamation of landed properties of mutts and temples and daily allowance of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 to servitors.
PNN