Priest stands in Sirsasana outside Kedarnath Temple, demands disbanding Uttarakhand's Char Dham Board

A priest from Kedarnath has opted to perform the sirsasana or the headstand outside the Kedarnath Temple to mark his protest against the formation of the Uttarkhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board.

A priest from Kedarnath has opted to perform the sirsasana or the headstand outside the Kedarnath Temple to mark his protest against the formation of the Uttarkhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board. The priest Acharya Santosh Trivedi has said there will be "major protest" by priests if the state government does not dissolve the board within seven days.

"I will protest like this for seven days. If the State government does not dissolve this board, there will be a major protest," he said. Other priests too have been sitting on a silent protest outside the Kedarnath temple, demanding the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board be disbanded.

Kedarnath Teerth Purohit Samaj said that if the board, which is constituted by the state government, is not dissolved soon, the protest will intensify. The priests said that with the formation of the board, their rights were being ignored and the government had enured control over shrine-related issues.

According to the Kedarnath Teerth Purohit Samaj, Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat had assured them of reconsidering the board soon after becoming the Chief Minister. "However, now instead of reconsidering, the board is being expanded, which will not be tolerated at all," they said. The priests have warned that they will continue their agitation till the time the board is not dissolved.

Ankit Semwal, a member of the Kedarnath Teerth Purohit Samaj said, "At present only symbolic protest is being done by the board and if the government does not make a decision soon, then the movement will be intensified." Last December, the Uttarakhand assembly had passed the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board Bill.

The bill, aimed at bringing the Char Dham of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri and 49 other temples under the purview of a proposed shrine board, was passed in the Assembly and became the Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act, 2019. (ANI)

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