Centre withdraws heritage bylaws for Puri Jagannath temple
BHUBANESWAR: The Centre on Monday withdrew the contentious draft heritage bylaws for the Jagannath Temple in Puri in the wake of strong resentment from different quarters, including both BJD and BJP, in the state.
Union culture minister Prahlad Singh Patel announced that the Centre would scrap the bylaws for the temple soon after chief minister Naveen Patnaik demanded their immediate withdrawal and delegations of BJD and BJP MPs from the state separately met Patel on the issue in New Delhi.
“The draft heritage bylaws of Jagannath temple and subsidiary shrines have been withdrawn due to some technical glitches. The revised notice will be issued later,” read a public notice issued by the NMA.
“The draft notification was issued without the knowledge of the chairman of the National Monuments Authority (NMA). The notification is withdrawn immediately. Any further work relating to Puri will be done in consultation with stakeholders,” Patel tweeted in Hindi after the BJD and BJP MPs met him.
Patel’s tweet did not specify if the NMA’s draft bylaws for Brahmeswar and Ananta Basudeva temples in Bhubaneswar would remain unchanged. While the BJD delegation had urged Patel to drop the bylaws for all three temples, the BJP MPs requested him to put them on hold until a consensus is reached among all the stakeholders.
On Sunday, the authorities of the three concerned shrines had written to the NMA, requesting it to scrap the bylaws. The state government felt the regulation would have an adverse effect on the ongoing development works around the Jagannath and the Lingaraj temples. The bylaws had proposed to prohibit construction within a 100-metre radius of the Jagannath Temple and restrict construction, re-construction, repair and renovation around a further 200 metres from the first 100 metres. If the draft bylaws for the Brahmeswar and the Ananta Basudeva temples are finalized, the government may have to seek the NMA’s permission to carry out the ongoing work around the Lingaraj Temple under its Ekamra Kshetra project.
The BJD and BJP took to Twitter to seek credit for the Centre’s decision. “Nobody can stop the development work of Lord Jagannath. The Centre should withdraw the NMA bylaws notification,” Naveen had told the media after offering prayers in the temple on Monday, in what was his first visit to the Puri shrine after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. After Patel’s announcement of the withdrawal of the bylaws, Naveen tweeted the hashtag #JaiJagannatha.