Odisha Congress demands opening of all four gates of Jagannath temple for devotees
Puri, Oct 16 : Odisha Congress on Monday demonstrated in this pilgrim city demanding opening of all the four gates of Sri Jagannath temple for the devotees
Shouting slogans and carrying banners, hundreds of congress activist led by PCC president Sarat Kumar Patnaik and former PCC chief Prasad Harichandan and Jayadev Jena marched on the Grand Road shouting slogans against the Naveen Patnaik government
The Congress leaders later submitted a memorandum listing the charter of demands to the temple chief administrator addressed to state governor Prof. Ganeshi Lal.
The Congress sought intervention of the Governor to exert pressure on the Temple administration to open all four gates of the sri Jagannath temple for devotees before the beginning of Kartik brata.
The memorandum said devotees coming from outside are the worst sufferers as they have to stand hours in queue under harsh weather in front of Simhadwar, the only entry gate to the temple.
The Temple administration, the memorandum said, has been repeatedly shifting dates to open all gates on the pretext of ongoing sri Mandir Parikrama work.
This apart the congress leaders stated that though the High court had directed the administration to carry out repairs to dilapidated Ratna Bhandar(Tempel Treasury) the administration did precious little in this regard.
The opening of ratna bhandar treasury to enumerate the precious ornaments, jewelleries and rare gems to match with inventory made five decades ago and the repairs of worn out jewellery of the lords have not been carried out on the ground of missing keys of the ratna bhandar.
The memorandum also pointed out that eighty percent residents of Puri have no land rights on their houses and property as the administration supplanted srimandir managing committee as the owner.
The residents cannot sell or take bank loans on their property. The PCC demanded to address this three decade old issue.
The PCC urged the state governor Prof. Ganeshi Lal to take up these issues with the state government.
Several senior Congress leaders including party MLA Suresh Chandra Routray and Taraprasad Bahinipati participated in the agitation programme.
