Kautilya Singh & Ishita Mishra | TNN
Dehradun: At the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s margdarshak mandal meeting at Haridwar, chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat on Friday said that the Uttrakhand government would denotify 51 temples, including Char Dham ones, from the Char Dham Devasthanam Board Act, giving control of the shrines back to priests from the hands of bureaucrats.
Repeating his promises to ‘teerth purohits’ (priests of the shrines) who had been agitating against the Devasthanam Board Act introduced by the Trivendra Rawat government — which brought the shrines under the control of the state government — the CM said that his government would now review the Act.
Soon after the VHP meeting, he said, “The issue was raised at the meeting and I have assured everyone that we are going to review the Act and denotify the 51 temples that are under its purview.”
The constitution of the board to manage prominent shrines in the state had been announced by former CM Trivendra in December 2019; it had led to backlash from the priests community, which had approached the Uttarakhand high court, terming it “an infringement of traditional rights of priests to manage affairs of the temples.” They were supported by BJP’s Subramanian Swamy who had argued their case in court. The HC had dismissed the priests’ petition last year after which Swamy had moved a special leave petition in the Supreme Court.
CM Rawat’s announcement on Friday was welcomed by the teerth purohit community. “This is a great move. We were expecting that he will support our genuine demands and he has stayed true to his promise. This is going to create good atmosphere for Char Dham Yatra this year,” said Brijesh Sati, spokesperson of Char Dham Teerth Purohit Mahapanchayat, the body representing Char Dham priests.
Another senior seer, Vasudevanand Saraswati, who was there in the VHP meet in Haridwar, said that even if the Devasthanam Board exists, it should be ensured that seers or priests head it and not bureaucrats.
With this announcement, the CM overturned yet another decision taken by his predecessor. Soon after taking charge last month, Tirath Rawat had withdrawn all cases registered against those who had been booked for flouting norms related to Covid-19 guidelines. He had also dismissed over 100 BJP functionaries, who were given minister or minister of state rank during Trivendra Rawat’s tenure.