BHUBANESWAR: AS controversy over the ‘missing’ Ratna Bhandar key refused to die down even after it was found from the Record Room of Puri district collectorate, the State BJP on Thursday asked the State Government to clarify if the key, that was recovered, is genuine.
Launching a scathing attack on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for utter mismanagement of the temple administration in the last couple of years, the deviation of sacred rituals during Nabakalebara being a major failure, the BJP said the Government should explain why it has not initiated any action against officials responsible for the missing of keys.
Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan has questioned the silence of the Chief Minister even after more than two months of the missing keys in a tweet on Thursday.
“The Chief Minister should clarify under what circumstances the Ratna Bhandar key was kept in record room instead of district treasury and how could one be sure that the key found is original when the Puri district collector claims it to be a duplicate one,” State BJP spokesperson Pitambar Acharya told a media conference here.
Dubbing the incident (key missing) as one of major scams of the decade, Acharya said four people – the Chief Minister, an officer of the CMO, Puri Collector and the newly-appointed administrator of Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) – should be taken to task as they are responsible for the incident.