Cracks appear in Arvind and Pradipta’s relations

Bhubaneswar, June 27:   A serious difference has been cropped up between the Puri Collector Arvind Agarwal, the deputy chief temple administrator of the Puri Shree Jagannath Temple and newly appointed chief administrator of the temple Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra. The reason is leakage of minutes of the March 20 proceedings of the Temple management committee regarding the President Ramnath Kovind visit to Puri.

Though the incident on unbecoming behavour to the first family of the country had taken place on March 18, no one has discussed the issue so far. “Why just before the Rath Yatra, the issue has been surfaced. It had not been possible without the support of senior officials of the Puri district administrator? We have a strong suspicion that as Puri Collector had been allegedly abused and manhandled by the servitors in 2016, few of his loyal might have leaked it to the press to fix the servitors before the Rath Yatra,” said an official.

What is more significant is that when the temple chief administrator tried to down play the issue, the channels continued to hammer that the Puri district collectoriarte had received the letter from the Raisina Hill. “The district collector who has a considerable influence in the media, did not come out to give a clarification on the issue. When he had voluntarily made a statement on the sudden appearance of the missing key of the Ratna Bhandar, why did he remained silent on the issue of alleged misbehave with the first lady of the country to the media for the last three months. He could have raised the issue earlier,” asked one of the official closely associated with the Rath Yatra preparation.

Officials said “Though the matter has been raised before the chief administrator, he reportedly remained silent on the issue. He even tried to divert the issue by saying its an internal inquiry was going on the matter.”

Sources said “As Arvind enjoyed the confidence of the third floor even Mohapatra did not dare to raise the issue with Agrawal why the issue cropped up just few hours ahead of the Deba Snana Purnima of Lord Jagannath and his siblings?  At this moment, the prime task of Mohapatra is to ensure that Rath Yatra passes off peacefully, he even refrains from taking a hard stance of the issue,”