Puri corridor row: Patra claims Puri MP lied about ground survey, BJD hits back

Wrangles over the Puri heritage corridor seemed to intensify on Sunday, with the opposition BJP accusing the Odisha government of not conducting due ground survey before digging soil for the project, next to the Shree Jagannath Temple, and the ruling BJD rebuffing the allegation as a ''false statement''.

BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, hitting out at Puri MP Pinaki Mishra, stated that Ground Penetrating Radar Survey (GPRS) was being carried out only now, in the dead of the night, much after the digging work commenced, contrary to what the parliamentarian had said.

Patra, in a video clip posted on Twitter, said, "The GPRS was not conducted before digging began. It was carried out over the past two days in the dead of the night. Media and locals residents have video-graphed a section of people carrying out the survey late in the night, when the entire pilgrim town was sleeping." Several media outlets have also claimed that the survey was carried out at night.

The BJD government project, adjacent to the 12th century shrine, ran into trouble after a section of politicians and experts claimed that it could cause harm to the temple infrastructure, a possibility that the Naveen Patnaik-led party has ruled out.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in its affidavit before the Orissa High Court, recently stated that no ground penetration survey was conducted to ascertain if there was anything of archaeological and historical importance buried in the subsoil that lay at a radius of 75m from the monument, before work on the project commenced.

This apart, the ASI also said that no heritage impact assessment study was conducted, and there was possibility that the construction work might have causes damage to the 800-year-old temple.

Three broken lion sculptures were found at the site earlier in the week during an excavation work.

Mishra had recently said that the survey was duly conducted before the digging work began.

Patra, who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Puri, said, "Mishra has also misled Parliament by saying that only four toilets would be constructed in the protected zone of the 12th century shrine. The MP must answer why a team from IIT Gandhinagar was found busy conducting the GPR survey at the project site in the dead of the night." Noting that the high court had asked the Odisha Bridge & Construction Corporation Limited, the executing agency, to work in tandem with the ASI, the BJP leader sought to know the names of agency officials who were present during the late night work.

Referring to Patra's allegation, the ruling BJD spokesperson Sulata Deo, in a series of tweets, he should stop politicising the matter.

''@sambitswaraj babu, the sevayats of Puri who have donated their land will not forgive you for obstructing the Puri project and regularly making false and misleading statements," Deo wrote She also said, ''The National Monuments Authority had permitted the construction of a reception centre at a lower height, but since the Odisha government wanted it to be taller, they shifted it to regulated zone. Your false and misleading statements are hurting the Sevayats and the Jagannath premis (devotees) severely." Meanwhile, the shaknaracharya of Govardhan Peeth in Puri, Swami Nischalananda Saraswati, said that he wasn't aware that a project of such scale was being set up in the town.

''I was not informed about the Puri Heritage Corridor Project. There is no point in converting the place of meditation into a tourist destination," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)