Puri: The initiation of action against 11 Srimandir servitors with regard to the Ghata Paribartan fiasco of 2015 has triggered allegations and counter-allegations between a Maharana (carpenter) servitor and Daita Niyog.
Senior Maharana servitor Krushna Chandra Maharana Wednesday claimed that the Daru (holy logs) selected for the construction of idols during the Nabakalebara festival were not up to the mark. “We had raised the issue with then Shree Jagannath temple chief administrator Suresh Chandra Mahapatra but no action was taken,” he said.
Maharana alleged that there were several irregularities in the selection of holy logs during the Nabakalebara. “Daita servitors were involved in all these irregularities. For them money is more important. They selected very old trees for Daru by ignoring relatively young trees. The holy logs could be collected from areas close to Puri, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. There was no need to go to Jagatsinghpur for the purpose,” said Maharana, who was the chief carpenter for construction of Devi Subhadra’s idol.
According to him, the carpenters engaged in idol construction faced a lot of problems due to ‘poor’ quality logs.
However, Daita Niyog refuted all allegations made by Maharana. Daita Niyog assistant secretary Binayak Dasmahapatra claimed that Maharana had not cooperated during idol construction. “There were no irregularities in the selection of holy logs. Maharana is a senior carpenter but he had not cooperated during idol construction,” Dasmahapatra said.
The senior Daita servitor welcomed the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration’s action against 11 servitors. “The guilty people should be punished,” he said.
However, Dasmahapatra admitted that there was an argument among some senior Daita servitors during the Ghata Paribartan ritual June 15, 2015.
“There was some delay in the performance of Ghata Paribartan ritual. But four Badagrahis had performed the secret ritual with utmost care and dedication. Anyway, we apologise before Lord Jagannath for the ritual delay. The incident would not be repeated in future,” Dasmahapatra said.
It is worth mentioning here that a neem tree for the holy log of Lord Sudarshan was selected from Gadakantunia village near Balakati on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar during the Nabakalebara festival.
On the other hand, the trees for the holy logs of Lord Balabhadra, Devi Subhadra and Lord Jagannath were selected from three separate places in Jagatsinghpur district.