West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday rubbished as "baseless and fabricated" the allegations that surplus sacred neem wood from Puri's Jagannath temple was used in crafting the idols of the newly built temple in Digha.
"Why would we use stolen neem wood? We have our sources of neem wood. These allegations are completely baseless and unacceptable," Banerjee said in Murshidabad.
"Why are they so angry just because we have built a Jagannath temple in Digha? Is it a crime to worship Lord Jagannath in West Bengal?" she asked, adding that the backlash was politically motivated.
It is being alleged that the sacred neem wood left after the 2015 'Nabakalebar'(new form) ceremony at the Puri Jagannath Temple was used in an unauthorised manner to make the idols at the Digha temple.
The 'Nabakalebar' ritual involves replacing the old idols of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, Devi Subhadra, and Sudarshan placed inside the Puri Jagannath Temple with new ones made of sacred neem wood. The ritual takes place after 12-19 years.
Her remarks came a day after the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) in Puri questioned a senior servitor over the alleged use of surplus sacred wood meant for the 12th-century Puri shrine in crafting idols for the Digha temple.
According to officials, Ramakrushna Dasmohapatra, secretary of the influential 'Daitapati Nijog', a body of servitors traditionally considered the bodyguards of Lord Jagannath, has been summoned for questioning.
Dasmohapatra had reportedly supervised the consecration ceremony of the Digha temple, which was attended by the West Bengal chief minister herself.
Nearly 56 servitors from the Puri temple had participated in the ceremony in Digha, raising eyebrows among temple authorities and drawing criticism from some quarters in Odisha.
On 2 May, Odisha law minister Prithiviraj Harichandan wrote to the Puri Jagannath Temple’s chief administrator, Arabinda Kumar Padhee, calling for an internal inquiry into the naming of the Digha temple after the 12th-century Jagannath Puri Temple in Odisha.
The minister said that the participation of Jagannath Puri Temple servitors in the inauguration ceremony of the Digha temple and the use of the sacred neem wood for sculpting the idols in the new temple were “totally unacceptable”.
The Digha temple project, backed by the West Bengal government, has been pitched as a major tourism and religious hub on the Bay of Bengal coast and is seen by many as a cultural counter-narrative to Puri's famed temple, one of the holiest shrines in the Hindu religion.
While the SJTA has not directly accused the West Bengal government of wrongdoing, it has expressed concern over reports that sacred wood left over from the construction of new chariots or temple works in Puri may have been diverted without proper authorisation.
