VHP files PIL at Calcutta HC challenging attribution of 'Dham' title for Digha Jagannath temple

Kolkata, July 2 (IANS) The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), on Wednesday, filed a public interest litigation at a division bench of the Calcutta High Court challenging the attribution of the tile of “Dham” for the recently inaugurated Lord Jagannath Temple at East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

The division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das has admitted the petition. The matter will come up for hearing either on Thursday or on Friday.

Officially, as per records of West Bengal, the Digha temple has been identified at Shree Jagannath Dham Cultural Centre. The main controversy in the matter since the beginning had been that per Hindu religious belief barring the four temples at Badrinath, Rameswaram, Dwarka, and Puri, no other religious structure can be referred to as “Dham”.

Now, VHP has filed the public interest litigation in the matter on the same grounds. In the petition, the VHP counsel had also mentioned that a portion of the sweets that were distributed among people as “Prasad” of the Digha temple, were prepared in sweetmeat shops owned by non-Hindus, which had affected the Hindu religious sentiments.

Since the beginning BJP had been vocal against sweets coming from non-Hindu shops being distributed as “Prasad: of the Digha Jagannath temple".

Last month, BJP’s Information Technology cell chief and the party’s central observer for West Bengal, Amit Malviya, had accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of trampling on Hindu sentiments by distributing sweets from non-Hindu shops as “Prasad” of the Digha temple.

According to him, as per tradition, non-Hindus are not allowed entry into Shree Jagannath Dham Temple at Puri in Odisha, a practice which is part of the sanctity attached to Lord Jagannath and his traditions.

In such a situation, Malviya argued, that “Prasad” meant for devotees of Lord Jagannath being sourced from non-Hindu shops was not secularism but targeted sacrilege.

--IANS

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