DAVANGERE: The trustees of the Panchamasali Gurupeet near Hanagawadi at Harihar in Davangere expelled Vachanananda Swamy from the gurupeet. This decision was taken in a meeting held at the mutt, which was attended by 13 out of 15 trustees.
Bavi Bettappa, one of the trustees, said, “We had issued him March 24 deadline to take a decision on either selecting the Swaasa Peet or staying in the Harihar Panchamasali Peetha. It was requested that Swamiji should leave the mutt if he chose the Swaasa Peet. However, since he did not give any information about this, decision has been taken to remove him from the position of the head of the mutt,” he said.
The tahsildar imposed prohibitory orders around the mutt after a campaign by devotees to get the accounts of the mutt published turned out of control. While Vachanananda Swamy and the trustees were inside the mutt, there was a scuffle between the police and the devotees outside.
Alleging that the trustees had misappropriated the donations given to the mutt by the government and devotees, hundreds of devotees including former MLA HS Shivashankar, BJP leader Somanna Bevinamarada and former Mayor Ajay Kumar protested, demanding an auditing.
The police arrested and later released the protesters to control the situation after they wanted to enter into the mutt.
The devotees alleged that Vachanananda Swamy was being expelled for asking the trustees to audit the mutt’s accounts. “We are here for the devotees, the police are disturbing the devotees. I was not informed about today’s meeting. No notice was given before the expulsion. An official notice should have been given. A mutt is not just for 12 people. We have joined the mutt to serve the society,” Vachanananda Swamy said.
Trustee Basavaraj Dindur said, “Every trustee assembled, discussed and took the decision. We had made Vachananada Swamy the Jagadguru of our mutt in 2018. We had asked him to choose between Swasa Gurupeet or Panchamasali Gurupeet at the time of making him the seer. However, he didn’t take any decision till date, Hence, it was inevitable for us to remove him from this Gurupeet. We had called him to the meeting, but he did not attend,” he said.