Pandian invites PM to witness opening of Ratna Bhandar during Rath Yatra

Bhubaneswar: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raked up the issue of the missing keys of Ratna Bhandar during his election rallies in Odisha, BJD leader V K Pandian dismissed it as a political statement by a party which is on a ‘weak wicket’.

“The Prime Minister should find out where it (keys of Jagannath Temple) has gone, if he has so much knowledge, perhaps, I would humbly request the honourable PM, he has so many authorities under him… he would be having some knowledge, he can enlighten the people of Odisha. He’s making a political statement, so we will take it like that,” he told PTI in response to a query on Modi’s remarks that ‘the missing keys of the Ratna Bhandar have gone to Tamil Nadu’.

Ratna Bhandar is the treasury of Jagannath Temple in Puri and it contains gold and jewelleries offered by devotees across the world through years. While the outer chamber stores ornaments and valuables that are used for adorning Lord Balabhadra, Devi Subhadra and Lord Jagannath, the inner chamber has gold, diamond, gems, silver and other valuables.

On the judicial inquiry report, Pandia said that an affidavit pertaining to it was filed with the Orissa High Court. “The HC ordered the Jagannath temple administration to open the Ratna Bhandar. Accordingly, it was decided to open it during Rath Yatra when pilgrims won’t be there and Nitis (rituals) will not be affected. So, the SJTA headed by Puri Gajapati has decided to open it. The government’s role was confined to appointing a retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which has been done. The committee has been appointed and the date too has been fixed,” he said.

The BJD leader further said that he would request PM Modi to come and witness the Ratna Bhandar opening after four decades. “In these four decades, the BJP ministers handled the issue for a decade when the saffron party was in power in the state in alliance with the BJD and perhaps, they should find from them where the keys are,” he said.

He also dubbed Ratna Bhandar as a ploy by BJP to divert the attention from the core issues of unemployment, price rise and inflation which is affecting the common people. “You can get a hint of what BJP is facing here from their rhetorics and the false narratives that they are trying to set in motion,” he added.

RATNA BHANDAR CONTROVERSY

For 6 years now, the keys to the inner chamber of the temple’s Ratna Bhandar are officially missing. The issue has resurfaced as a major point of contention, with the BJP leveraging it to attack the ruling BJD government while accusing the latter of suppressing Justice Raghubir Dash Commission report on missing keys of Ratna Bhandar.

On April 4, 2018, officials of the temple reported that the keys of Ratna Bhandar, situated near the sanctum sanctorum of the 12th-century shrine, as they proceeded to carry out an inspection of its structural condition in accordance with a HC order, leading to widespread outrage. Subsequently, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ordered a judicial inquiry into the matter and the commission submitted a 324-page report in November 2018, but its findings remain undisclosed. Around Rs 22.27 lakh was reportedly spent on the Commission.

Curiously, days after the judicial inquiry was ordered, the then Puri district Collector, the official custodian of the keys, mysteriously found an envelope with “duplicate keys of inner Ratna Bhandar” written on it in the record room of the Collectorate, adding fuel to the lingering controversy over the treasure trove.

HC ORDERS

To reopen the Ratna Bhandar, the administration needs to constitute a committee comprising servitors, temple officials and members of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). The ASI has already given its nod for the opening it.

In February, the HC asked the Odisha government to appoint a retired judge either of the High Court or of the Supreme Court as the chairman of the committee for Ratna Bhandar to take a call on the reopening, inventorisation and counting of the jewellery of the treasure trove.

This came four months after the court directed the state government to constitute a high-level committee, if the Puri Jagannath Temple management approached it, for supervising the process of inventory of the valuables stored in Ratna Bhandar. The government was asked to form such a panel within 60 days from the date when the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC) approaches.

The court also endorsed the decision of SJTMC to form such a panel by the government led by a retired high court or Supreme Court judge to supervise the process while heating a PIL filed by former state BJP president Samir Mohanty, who sought direction for an inventory of the precious materials in the inner chamber and necessary repair work.

While the Shree Jagannath Temple management approved the constitution of a committee for the inventorisation and counting of the jewellery inside the treasure trove of the temple, the state government dilly-dallied on the issue and did not constitute the committee within the stipulated time frame.

The last time the inventory of ornaments was made in 1978.