BHUBANESWAR:Amidst massive uproar over irregularities in Nabakalebara rituals, Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati on Friday said bad times are in store for Odisha where the administration has blatantly violated religious norms of Lord Jagannath and is playing with sentiments of people.
Odisha will suffer from catastrophic consequences of the ‘Brahma Parivartan’ bungling, he prophesised at a media conference here.
The Shankaracharya was particularly harsh on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for maintaining a mum when the entire State is outraged by the irregularities.
He, though, targeted Chief Administrator of Sri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Suresh Mohapatra for allegedly holding the shrine and its centuries-old customs to ransom. The Chief Administrator, the religious guru said, has joined hands with a few ‘bahubali’ (a coterie of powerful people) and is running the temple affairs without any direction whatsoever.
“The inquiry will yield nothing since the Chief Administrator himself heads the probe. The administration must realise that temple matters are not a game of cricket. Even cricket is managed better,” he said.
The seer alleged that SJTA and its chief have hijacked the rights of Shankaracharya who is the highest authority in religious matters of the temple. “If the record or rights are silent on certain religious issues, the Shankaracharya should have been consulted which is an established fact. Even the Supreme Court and High Court orders are unanimous on this but the SJTA flouted the court orders blatantly,” he said.
When an IAS officer has a say on temple matters, how come the Shankaracharya does not have rights, he wondered.
A visibly agitated Shankaracharya said the Naveen Patnaik Government is responsible for the lawlessness in Puri temple, one of world’s most revered seat of Hinduism. “Since the CM is mum and ill-advised, the Chief Administrator has the audacity to question the authority of Shankaracharya which even the Prime Minister of the country does not,” he said.
The Puri seer called for a complete reform in the temple’s administration and management to prevent recurrence of such blunders in future. The seer said he has prepared a list of 198 experts with whom a consultation would be held.