05-05-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Constitute top panel to manage Puri temple
The new Jagannath temple in West Bengal's Digha finds itself at the centre of a controversy soon after opening. Right from its consecration on Akshaya Tritiya, the temple funded by the WB Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation drew the ire of Jagannath devotees and politicians in equal measures.
While Mamata Banerjee's opponents have called it a cultural centre—and not a temple—built to garner political capital ahead of the 2026 assembly elections, it has led to outrage in Odisha, home to the Shree Jagannath Temple of Puri, one of the country's four dhams. A top servitor of the Odisha temple triggered the controversy when he told a Bengali TV channel that the idols for the Digha temple were made with surplus neem wood from the Puri shrine.
His claim, which he later refuted under growing criticism, snowballed into a political storm, prompting the Mohan Charan Majhi government to order an inquiry. The probe eventually revealed that neem wood from the Puri temple was not used, but the participation of the senior servitor in the consecration rituals at Digha raised questions. Two servitor bodies had cautioned its members against taking part in the rituals of the Digha temple on the grounds of dilution of tradition.
