Odisha may sue over ‘dham’ tag

Bhubaneswar: Law Minister Prithiviraj Harichandan Thursday said the state was mulling legal action over use of the title ‘dham’ for the recently inaugurated Jagannath temple in West Bengal’s Digha. Harichandan said discussions with legal experts are underway and a decision in this regard will be taken soon. “The West Bengal government has not yet responded to our letter. We are examining legal options over use of the ‘dham’ tag for the Jagannath temple in Digha,” he said. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had May 6 written a letter to his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, requesting her to refrain from referring to the Jagannath temple in Digha as ‘dham’. Banerjee had inaugurated the temple in Digha April 30 and described it as a ‘Jagannath Dham’, sparking a controversy in Odisha. Though 10 days have passed since the CM wrote to Banerjee, “we are yet to receive any response”, Harichandan said. The Odisha government and two Shankaracharyas have maintained that only the 12th-century Jagannath temple in Puri can be called a ‘dham’. Earlier, the titular king of Puri, Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, who is also the chairman of the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC) in Puri, had strongly objected to the use of the label ‘dham’ for the Digha temple.