Bhubaneswar: Tension between the Jagannath temple administration and the servitors eased on Wednesday even as law minister Pratap Jena asserted in the Assembly that reports of deities going without food on Monday, when Jagmohan was reopened, were wrong.

"Though it is true that there was some delay in performance of the rituals, the deities did not entirely go without food," he said, adding that the next day rituals, including mangal alati were performed in time. However, the temple kitchen had to be cleaned up as a large amount "un-offered" cooked food had been lying there.

The minister said all rituals were performed on Wednesday without any hitch with the stage getting set for the chandan yatra, a major event that draws thousands of devotees to Puri. He said the government was keeping a constant watch on the situation in the temple.

Sources said that though performance of rituals in the temple normalised, devotees had to go without abadha (cooked food) that is prepared by suar and mahasuar servitors, who are adamant on their demand for compensation for the cooked food that had to be destroyed on Monday because of delay in rituals. The temple's Ananda Bazar, where the cooked mahaparasad is sold, wore a deserted look for the second consecutive day.

The temple rituals got delayed on April 16 as the concerned servitor, who was scheduled to perform puja, failed to turn up. Though the mahaprasad was prepared in the temple kitchen, it could not be offered to the deities and remained as amhunia mahaprasad (unoffered mahaprasad). It had to be buried.

Opposition members on Wednesday in the House demand a statement either from chief minister Naveen Patnaik or law minister Jena. The House had to be adjourned at least thrice before Jena came up with his statement.

Earlier, Opposition leader Narasingha Mishra had expressed concern over the stalemate in the state's most famous shrine, saying that the administration appeared to have been hit by paralysis. "It has lost direction," he said.

However, the temple's public relations officer Lakshmidhar Pujapanada said the situation in the shrine was normal with rituals being performed without any hitch.