BENGALURU: Two days after villagers and devotees launched a protest seeking the ouster of Pattada Parvatharaja Shivacharya, head of the Muddevanavara Veera Simhasana Samsthan Mutt at Hunasamaranahalli in Chikkajala police limits, and his son Dayananda Swami alias Gurunajeshwara, the seer of the Srisailam Peetha has given the duo 15 days to vacate the mutt.
Panditaradhya Shivacharya, the seer of the Srisailam Peetha, who arrived here on Saturday, held a meeting with locals and has set up a committee to look into irregularities in the mutt. The Hunasamaranahalli mutt comes under the Srisailam Peetha. Earlier, when the seer arrived at the mutt, locals demanded that he sack the swami’s family. Police then lathicharged those were shouting slogans.
Meanwhile, in a twist to the sex video episode involving Dayananda Swami and a small-time actress, two local youths, Praveen and Harish, on Saturday claimed that it was a case of honeytrap and that `20 lakh had been demanded from Dayanand to not hand over the video to news channels. Panditaradhya Shivacharya was informed.
Rudraradhya, a mutt trustee, said Harish sent a video to some locals stating that one Himachalapathy was behind the sex tape. “Himachalapathy had allegedly asked Harish to extort `20 lakh from Dayanand and offered to give him `1 lakh once their plan succeeded. But Harish did a U-turn by stating that Praveen Kumar was behind the honeytrap and that one Jagadish had threatened him to name Himachalapathy in his video statement. Harish added that he was drunk when they recorded him and alleged that his life is under threat,” Rudraradhya said. “We will not stop our hunger strike until the swami and his son are ejected,” he added.
Mysore king gave huge tracts of land
The Muddevanavara Veera Simhasana Samsthan Mutt is a branch of Srisaila Peetha of Veershaiva tradition and has a history of 200 years. Pattada Parvatharaja Swamiji is currently heading the mutt. It had around 3,300 acres of property, donated by the erstwhile Mysore Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, of which 1,200 acres was sold to the airport authorities. Now the mutt is left with 60 acres.
After Parvatharaja Shivacharya suffered a stroke in 2011, his son Dayananda had plans to take over as mutt pontiff. There were allegations that hundreds of acres of mutt property were sold to private parties and a private complaint has been filed before a court against the swami’s family.