Nabakalebara mess: Suspended Daitapati blasts SJTA chief

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Aug 2:

Already under fire from Jagannath Swain Mohapatra, the badagrahi of Lord Jagannath, chief administrator of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Suresh Mohapatra today came under some more artillery fire with suspended Daitapati servitor Jayakrushna Das Mohapatra putting the entire blame for the Brahma Parivartan mess on him.

Jayakrushna Das Mohapatra
Jayakrushna Das Mohapatra

“The chief administrator of SJTA is squarely responsible for everything that went wrong during the whole Nabakalebara process – starting from the selection of the darus and culminating in the fiasco during the Brahma Parivartan ritual,” Das Mohapatra told media persons here this afternoon.

Jayakrushna and his father Kashinath, it may be noted, were suspended by the SJTA for their alleged role in the Brahma Parivartan mess. The father-son had approached the High Court seeking quashing of the order, but the court rejected their petition on July 24.

Das Mohapatra said the chief administrator had no authority to suspend him. “According to the Record of Rights of the Temple, only the Muktimandap Sabha and Jagataguru Sankaracharya have the power to take action against any sevayatas (servitors),” he claimed.

Accusing the chief administrator of acting with mala fide against him and his father, the suspended Daitapati said the former did it to ‘save his post’.

Pointing to the fact that he and his father were neither served a show cause notice nor given an opportunity to present their side of the story, Das Mohapatra said; “He only called a few sevaks, who are beholden to him, to discuss the matter and served a suspension notice on me to save his post because he feared that I would spill the beans about the wrong doings that took place on Brahma Parivartan under his direct supervision.”

jayakrushna presser

“We are the daita seveka from uncounted years and this seva (service) is not assigned to us by any government agency or individual. We have been doing this ritual for generations. Sometime he threatens some of our Daita sevakas, if we not toe his line and suspends us from seva like he did in our case,” the suspended Daitapati said.

“On the evening of Brahma Parivartan too, the chief administrator did the same. He was the person who permitted some of senior Daitas to carry cell phones inside the Temple and pass on all information. It shows how Mohapatra violated the rules,” the servitor alleged.

He further demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter to find out the real culprits. “The agency should go through all the communication data/records of telephone calls of Mohapatra during that particular time of the Brahma Parivartan day,” Das Mohapatra said.

He said he would present a memorandum to the President of India Pranab Mukherjee during his visit to Odisha on August 7 seeking his intervention on the unjust action taken against him and his father.

Das Mohapatra said if he still failed to get justice, he would resort to the agitational path, “Besides, I will take young servitors into my fold and expose the wrongdoings of temple administration which is against the Jagannath culture,” Das Mohapatra warned.
It may be noted that Jagannath Swain Mohapatra, the badagrahi of Lord Jagannath who was served a show cause notice by the SJTA for allowing a woman devotee to climb the chariot at the adapa mandap, had also fulminated against the chief administrator accusing him of working out of pique at being sidelined with the appointment of senior IPS officer Soumendra Priyadarshi as the OSD for Nabakalebara to discredit the Naveen Patnaik government. 
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