Bhubaneswar, June 30: After the Congress, it is now the turn of the BJP to hit the streets on the issue of the delay in Brahma paribartan of the Trinity at the Jagannath temple in Puri.

The party, which was almost routed in the last general elections, today begun its Jagannath Sanskruti Suraksha Yatra with a customised vehicle carrying party's message rolling out from Puri. The vehicle will pass through the seven coastal districts to highlight the failure of the Naveen Patnaik government in handling the issue.

All its senior leaders, including party president K.V. Singh Deo, Union minister Jual Oram, former chief minister Giridhar Gamang, Bijoy Mohapatra and Biswa Bhushan Harichandan were in Puri to flag off the car.

The party is demanding a judicial probe into incident. "The BJD wants to make the entire Nabakalebar process a party event. When the holy neem trees were being felled, ministers had entered the restricted area. There is utter indiscipline in organising the entire Nabakalebar event. We are going to expose this before the people," said BJP senior leader Pratap Sarangi.

K.V. Singh Deo said: "The chief minister is responsible for the entire mess. He should give a statement on this issue but is maintaining a stoic silence. Only a judicial probe can expose the truth."

Bijoy Mohapatra said: "The government wants to manage the car festival through a few IAS officers. It should refrain from that and should seek the help of Puri Gajapati Dibya Singh Deb and Puri Shankarachrya Nishalananda Sarswati."

In 2007, the party had made an attempt to consolidate its position in the state by exploiting the religious feelings of the people in the wake of the Kandhamal riots. But this helped it only marginally with the number of BJP MLAs going up from six to 10 in the state Assembly.

BJD spokesperson Samir Dash said: "They tried this during the Kandhamal clashes but failed. The same thing will happen again. The people of Odisha don't need to be educated by them about the Jagannath culture. It is like trying to guide people with a lantern during the day."

Targeting the BJP, senior BJD leader and party spokesperson Amar Satpthy said: "Though there is a need to bring reforms in the Shree Jagananth Temple management, all that the BJP is doing is trying to derive political mileage out of the issue. It will boomerang on them."

The car will pass through coastal districts of Cuttack, Jajpur, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Khurda and Nayagarh districts, considered BJD strongholds.

The party's seven-day yatra comes after the Congress's Odisha Bandh on June 26. Incidentally, both the BJP and Congress have asserted that they are not trying to gain political mileage from the issue.

The state government's crime branch today constituted a three-member team to find out who had posted the purported photograph of the Brahma and other secret rituals inside the Jagannath temple in Puri on social media.

ADG crime branch B.K. Sharma said: "A special investigation team has been constituted for this purpose after an FIR was lodged."