Lingaraj temple. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 14: Daily rituals at the Lingaraj temple were delayed by nearly nine hours today because the servitors, who were supposed to perform them, did not turn up following a dispute with the temple administration.

The rituals, which were supposed to take place at 6.30 in the morning, started only at 3.20 in the afternoon.

The servitors said the administration was not allotting the job of performing rituals properly. The rituals started only after the intervention of temple administration and endowment commissioner of Odisha.

Two meetings were held at the temple administration office after which the Puja Panda Nijoga agreed to perform the daily rituals. As the situation worsened, the temple administration had to bring the rajguru, a senior priest of the Puri Jagannath temple, to intervene in the matter.

The delay was caused because the servitors who were assigned to perform the mangal alati and abakash stayed away from the temple. Following this, the Puja Panda Nijoga, one among the 36 nijogas (services) of the temple, said the temple administration was not allotting the seva pali properly.

“The administration has assigned duties to such servitors who are not accustomed with the sevas. Moreover, there is no proper routine on the deployment of servitors inside the temple,” said the president of Puja Panda Sevayat Samiti, Kashinath Pujapanda.

However, temple administration officials refuted these allegations.

“A family dispute between two servitor brothers was the reason behind the absence of the one who was supposed to perform the rituals today. The dispute started last August and we have been making alternative arrangements when the brothers remained absent,” said additional executive officer of the temple administration, G.C. Pradhan.

The temple administration has asked for two months to solve the dispute and the matter will be discussed in the next trust board meeting.

Yesterday, the assistant commissioner of endowments, Bhubaneswar, had issued an order to the executive officer of the temple to instruct the two servitor brothers and other servitors to perform their duties and threatened to take action if this was not done.

The visitors came as usual despite the rituals being delayed. However, they could not offer prasad to the deity. “We have come from Baripada to visit the temple. But we were told that we could not offer bhoga as the daily rituals have not started,” said Shradha Samantray, who came with her family to visit the 11th century shrine.

The temple has been witnessing frequent fights between the priests and the temple administration and infighting among the sevayats for a long time. A servitor was killed on August 8, last year, following violence between two groups of priests.