With only two weeks to go for the June 29 Rath Yatra at Puri, the row over devotees climbing the chariots and touching the deities between the Daitapati servitors of the Shree Jagannath Temple and the Shankaracharya of Gobardhan Peeth, Puri, intensified further on Sunday.
In a statement, the Daitapati Nijog came down heavily on Shankaracharya Nischalananda Saraswati accusing him of running a 'vilification campaign' against the servitors' body and trying to defame the State Government.
"We are not going to obey the diktat of the Shankaracharya, who has engaged himself in a vilification campaign in the name of religion to spoil the pristine tradition of the festival observed for ages. The seer is also trying his best to defame the Odisha Government. Going by all his statements and insistence, it can be said without any doubt that there is a conspiracy to create a series of disturbances in the ensuing Rath Yatra," Jagannath Swain Mohapatra, Mukhya Badagrahi (chief spokesperson) of Daitapati Nijog told the media.
Fuming at the recommendation of the Shankaracharya to bar devotees from touching the deities atop the chariots, Mohapatra said the seer has no right to deprive the devotees of their wishes.
"How come the seer has no knowledge about the gross mismanagement inside the temple as the devotees are forced to take their food in the hotels due to inordinate delay in the release the Prasad of the lordsIJ This is just the tip of the iceberg as far such irregularities and mismanagement in the temple are concerned. The Shankaracharya, instead of looking at these, has touched the emotional chord of the devotees with his own tilted and provocative views," he alleged.
"let the Shankaracharya withdraw his decision at the earliest, failing which he would not get respect from the devotees and the servitors in future," Mohapatra warned.
Reacting to the statement of the Daitapati Nijog, the office of the Shankaracharya, in its counter statement, reiterated the seer's observation that having darshan of the lords is a tradition, but touching them is a sin.
"The decision of the Gobardhan Peeth on this issue is final," said the Shankaracharya's spokesman Manoj Rath in a release to the media.