With Jagannatha temple corridor, Naveen Patnaik's BJD looks to one-up BJP

With the grand unveiling of the Jagannatha heritage corridor, Naveen Patnaik plans to undercut any gains the BJP may have in Odisha because of the Ayodhya event

At a time when nationwide invites are being sent out by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony on January 22, complete with packets of akshat (sacred yellow rice) and informative pamphlets, a similar yet unique campaign is being carried out in Odisha. 

A fleet of 8,000 specially designed vehicles, decked out with hoardings of Lord Jagannatha and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, are traversing every nook and corner of the state. These vehicles are accompanied by religious troupes and women offering rice and betel nuts. This campaign will culminate with Patnaik inaugurating a heritage corridor around the 12th-century Jagannatha temple in Puri on January 17.

Unlike Ayodhya, where a new temple complex is under construction, the Puri temple has received a facelift akin to the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir in Varanasi – with no tweaking of the inner compound. 
 

The timing of the corridor dedication event by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in the state is strategic — barely four days before the Ayodhya ceremony and just three months before polls. Odisha votes in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections simultaneously. 

The BJD is eyeing a sixth consecutive term in the state and looks to secure more Lok Sabha seats than it got in 2019. It bagged 112 of the 147 Assembly constituencies last time but lost eight of the 21 Lok Sabha seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its principal rival in the state.

The Rs 943 crore temple heritage corridor, part of the Rs 4,224 crore “project of the century” to revamp Puri’s infrastructure, falls under the Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha scheme. 

The project, which began in 2021, is overseen by V Karthikeyan Pandian, a former bureaucrat and Patnaik’s ex-private secretary, who has since joined the ruling party. 

Since the project took off, Pandian has visited the temple, 60 km from Bhubaneswar, at dawn every Saturday to inspect the heritage corridor’s construction.

The corridor provides a 75-metre free passage around the shrine’s outer walls, with nine zones aimed at ensuring temple security and providing basic amenities to devotees. The temple saw over 500,000 devotees on New Year’s Day alone.

The town’s makeover also includes a 2.8 km bypass, called Shree Setu — Odisha’s first trumpet bridge — set to reduce travel time to the temple by an hour.

In the run-up to the project’s opening, the state planned fortnight-long promotional activities at every panchayat and sent invitations to heads of other states, corporates, over 1,000 temples nationwide, the Shankaracharyas of Chardham (four major Hindu shrines), and the erstwhile king of Nepal, who has traditional ties with the temple.

Chief Administrator Ranjan Dash told reporters that Swami Nischalananda Saraswati, the 145th Jagadguru Shankaracharya of the Purvamnaya Govardhan Peetham of Puri, accepted the invitation and would look to attend the ceremony.

Interestingly, all four Shankara-charyas have declined to attend the Ayodhya ceremony.
 

According to a January 7 PTI report, the Puri Shankaracharya had said he would not attend the consecration ceremony “just for clapping”, as PM Modi would perform the consecration ceremony. 

In Puri, King Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb, the deity’s first sevak, initiated the six-day rituals by offering sacred betels to Brahmins on Friday, followed by a three-day yajna.

The government is spending over Rs 150 crore to transport people from all 314 blocks and disseminate information about the project, a move that Opposition parties claim is a waste of the exchequer’s money. The Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha Scheme aims to preserve Jagannatha culture and develop amenities near places of worship across the state, with Rs 520 crore already disbursed for these projects.

The BJP’s Jayanarayan Mishra, also leader of the Opposition, told media in Bhubaneswar that the BJD government was mimicking the Ayodhya preparations for its Puri event. Political pundits, on the other hand, believe this is a calculated move by the BJD to undercut the BJP’s electoral gains from the Ram temple programme.
 

“Religion is a source of legitimacy. The BJD is following the BJP’s steps in a bid to hide its failures and create legitimacy among the public,” Bijaya Bohidar, a retired political science professor and political commentator, labelling these religious outreaches as competitive abandonment of secularism.
 

Senior journalist Prasanna Mohanty concurred, saying “the BJD ended ties with the BJP in 2009, accusing it of being a communal party. But it is now apprehending that the saffron party might convert the nationwide popularity of Modi into votes in the state as well.”

The two parties maintain a cordial relationship at the Centre but fight it out in the state.

The BJD faced backlash when centuries-old mutts near the temple were demolished in 2021, with locals and Opposition parties accusing it of being anti-Hindu. In December, the BJP and the Congress alleged that Pandian hurt the religious sentiment of the people by facilitating the entry of social media influencer Kamiya Jani into the temple, claiming she was a “promoter of beef consumption”.
 

Brahmananda Satpathy, a senior political science professor, said: “It’s all about faith, and Odias are firm believers in Jagannatha. Both BJP and BJD are trying to woo the voters, invoking religious sentiment, and it is quite natural.” Mutts and settlements around the temple are now being redeveloped.

The Puri king recently said the government stuck to its decision, and the change is now visible. Pradeep Dash, former temple administrator (rituals), said the corridor project was necessary but the promotion could have been avoided.
 

Taking part in a Ram Mandir invitation outreach last week, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the corridor project must not be politicised.

While the Congress top central leaders have said they wouldn’t attend the Ayodhya programme, terming it an RSS-BJP event, Congress leader in the Odisha Assembly Narasingha Mishra rejected the Puri invite, accusing the BJD government of turning the ceremony into a party affair.

The cost of facelift 

Rs 4,224 crore: Scheme to transform Puri’s infrastructure. This includes the construction of a 2.8 km bypass, called Shree Setu — the first trumpet bridge in Odisha
 

Rs 943 crore: A 75-meter heritage corridor around the Jagannatha temple, featuring a green buffer zone, inner circumambulatory path, tree-lined outer path, and public convenience area

Rs 20 crore: Transporting people from all 314 blocks for the ceremony

Rs 136 crore: Disseminating information on the Shree Mandira Parikrama Prakalpa