Nishikant files PIL to allow Shravani mela

Ranchi: BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Wednesday filed a public interest litigation at Jharkhand high court seeking permission to hold the annual Shravani mela in Deoghar. Backing his demand, Dubey said the fair can be organised by adhering to the norms of social distancing.
The move comes a day after the Deoghar district administration hinted that the fair, which sees people coming in from across the world, may not take place this year in the lack of guidelines from the state government. Notably, all religious places and congregations have been shut till June 30 in the state in view of a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases. Till Tuesday, Deoghar recorded 32 cases of which 22 are still active.
Earlier, Dubey had said, “Shravani mela has never stopped even during other pandemics like the plague or during the times of Mughal carnage.” He added that continuance of a ban on shrines does not hold any rational when the state government has eased restrictions by and large.
The priest community had also demanded opening of the temple. “Offering sacred water to the deity by fetching water from Ganga in Sultanganj by kanwariyas constitute a mandatory annual religious ritual,” Kartik Nath Thakur, the general secretary of the Panda Dharma Rakshini Sabha, the local priests’ body had said.
Notably, it takes two months for the district administrations of Deoghar and Dumka (where Basukinath temple is located) to prepare for Shravani mela, which sees around 50 lakh devotees coming in from across the world.