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BY- DN Singh
It was on June 27. 2025 when the Lord of the universe Jagannath along with his brother and sister was on the chariots in their sojourn to Sri Gundicha temple the great event was blemished by several inauspiciousness.
A man-made incongruity which left three pilgrims dead and over 700 injured. Worse, the chaos created a situation in which the sacred chariot of Lord Jagannath, Nandighosh, for the first time in the history of the thousands of years of the festival , could not be pulled at all from the main temple for several reasons now under investigation.
But history will record how political bigwigs play with the sentiments of millions and millions of devotees of the Lord in the world.
Leaving aside the steps taken by the BJP government, slapping suspensions or transferring some officials for the stampede which killed three devotees near Gundicha temple and injured hundreds in just unforgivable.
Some officers have been suspended and a few transferred but does that placate the ruffled psyche of the people in the state?
What about the other people who were also equally punishable! Those lives cannot come back.
“Now in pivotal focus is the Chariot of Lord Jagannath that was left in a state of animated suspension because of many reasons but the factor that was widely reported was the overcrowding of the cordon around the chariot where a huge number of VIPs of the BJP who stayed put inside the cordon” confided one Servitor(Priest of the Lord).
“Which left no breathing space for the servitors to go ahead with the pre-pulling phase rituals as laid down in the scriptures. In fact, the cordon looked like a tourist’s day out and ironically those were all happening in the presence of the state’s Law Minister” charged Bhakta Charan Das, the present PCC president.
“Instead of sanitizing the cordon and make it conducive for the pulling of the chariot, perhaps the minister Prithviraj Harichandan was rather enjoying the blaze of cameras of the media” alleged Ipsit Pratihari, a senior servitor of the Jagannath Temple.
“In addition what is going to be remembered is that, for the first time in its history the chariot of Lord Jagannath, Nandighosh, could not be pulled from the temple for reasons not yet known but could be guessed” added Pratihari.
However, what played up itself visibly was not only a mammoth number of pilgrims but it was the massive number of leaders (VIPs) from the Bharatiya Janata Party who virtually laid siege to the prohibited ring around creating a situation where also the law keepers of the administration were rendered mute onlookers.
For the first time a blot was imprinted in Rath Yatra’s history of thousands of years that Nandighosh chariot was subjected to a humiliation unheard of.
“Nobody knows and we wonder, what made the administration allow such a chaotic situation inside the safety ring converting it to a roaming ground for the VIPs and their families lounging there, obstructing the rituals done by the Sevayats(priests) and officials” said Rajkumar Mohanty, a very senior journalist having covered Rath Yatra for last three decades.
It is said that the required discipline and room for maneuver was given second fiddle. Even protocols were run over in certain areas as powerful BJP leaders tried to enter the grand road with motorcades which was strictly prohibited for anyone.
“If that was not a display of an attitude born out of arrogance of power then what” questioned Piku Patnaik, a lawyer who heads the Jagannath Sena in Puri. “ An incident that disturbed the morale of the police when a Union Minister drove through, with a motorcade, was stopped by an IPS,Vishal Singh, in-charge of traffic regulation. Sadly, on the contrary, the latter was given a dose of the minister’s arrogance and was literally insulted by the minister who dubbed the officer ‘ a mere IPS’ and went ahead.
Coincidences are often amazing. When ‘Nandighosh’ was immovable, the bigwigs inside the cordon suddenly sported smiles when the controversial industrialist Gautam Adani reached Puri late evening on June 27 and worshiped the Lord.
“However, undertones filled the air that the delay in pulling Chariots was created for Adani although there is no such evidence to support it but it happened” said Piku Patnaik.
When asked by the media that why Lord’s chariot was not moving, the Chief Administrator of Puri temple Arabinda Padhi said that, “that is perhaps the Lord’s wish” this coming from a senior IAS officer who was literally heading the entire arrangement of the festival speaks of his desperation for the escape and skirt responsibility” quipped Pratihari.
The Law Minister of Odisha, Prithviraj Harichandan and the then Superintendent of Police Vineet Agarwal (transferred by now) spoke about the logjam of the chariot of the Lord in the similar vein.
Ultimately the Chariot of the Lord could not move on June 27th (day of Rath Yatra) which is a bad precedent in itself. And aberration in the rituals of the Lord.
“The Damocles sword why fell on two officers ( the Collector of Puri and the SP) only and why the concerned minister Prithviraj Harichandan was not asked to resign for such an abnormality taking place in his presence” said Saumitra Harichandan, senior journalist in Puri talking to this reporter.
Transfers or suspensions do not compensate for such a huge anomaly when over 700 were injured and three persons died in a man-made mess. The chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi owes an explanation when his political colleagues think themselves above the traditions of the deities.
“The thing is during the erstwhile regime under Naveen Patnaik, although it was a bureaucratic driven system but Patnaik used to keep a personal vigil being in Puri till all the chariots start rolling on the Grand Road. But under BJP it is the ministers and ‘netas’ those who blow their sirens a notch higher fulfilling years old voids” Rabi Das, political commentator noted while talking to this reporter.
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