BHUBANESWAR: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s stocktaking meeting for July 14 Rath Yatra in Puri, scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed to July 6.The sudden postponement of the meeting came a day after a section of servitors on Sunday announced to boycott Naveen’s meeting. The servitors are protesting against the Puri district administration’s alleged fake charges of misconduct by priests to president Ram Nath Kovind and his wife Savita in the shrine on March 18.Neither the Puri district administration nor the chief minister’s office revealed the cause of the deferment. “I do not know why the meeting was postponed. Most probably, the meeting will be held on July 6,” Puri district information and public relations officer Manas Biswal told TOI. Biswal parried the question whether the district administration was worried over possible unpleasant situation during the meeting.Puri SP Sarthak Sarangi denied there was any security threat to Naveen’s Tuesday meeting. An official source said the state police headquarters has instructed Puri police to strengthen their intelligence networks and keep an eye on suspicious persons, who may create problems during Naveen’s visit to Puri on July 6.The state government has drawn flak from several voluntary organisations on issues involving disappearance of the keys of Jagannath temples inner Ratna Bhandar and fake allegation of harassment of Kovind in the temple.Sri Jagannath Sevayat Sammilani, an association of servitors, had on Sunday put up posters around the shrine and appealed to their colleagues to stay away from Naveen’s meeting on Tuesday. “We still urge our community members to boycott the CM’s meeting on July 6 as well. Unless the chief minister punishes Puri district collector Aravind Agarwal and temple’s former chief administrator P K Jena , we will not sit silent,” said sammilani’s secretary Kasinath Khuntia.The roles of Agarwal and Jena have come under the scanner as they were on March 20 quoted as saying in a meeting that the President and his wife were allegedly shoved by some servitors during their visit to the 12th century shrine. As the issue triggered countrywide furore following emergence of the minutes of the March 20 meeting last week, the Rashtrapati Bhavan denied having lodged any complaint with the Odisha government. State chief secretary Aditya Padhi and the Puri Jagannath Temple’s new chief administrator Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra too dismissed the allegations of misconduct towards Kovind and his wife.

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