Puri (Odisha) [India], June 13 (ANI): Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi along with Deputy Chief Ministers KV Singh Deo and Prabhati Parida on Thursday offered prayers at the 12th-century temple of Lord Jagannath temple in Puri. The four gates of the temple that were kept closed since the COVID-19 pandemic were thrown open today for devotees.
Majhi who was sworn in as Odisha Prime Minister M’s BJP government in its first Cabinet meeting approved a proposal to re-open all four gates of Shree Jagannath Temple in Puri early on Thursday morning and set up a corpus fund for it.
Puri MP Sambit Patra, Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi and other ministers and leaders of the party were also present at the temple.
Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi said, “We had proposed to open all the four gates of Jagannath Temple in yesterday’s cabinet meeting. The proposal was passed and today at 6:30 am, I along with my MLAs and Puri MP (Sambit Patra) attended the ‘Mangala aarti’… For the development of the Jagannath Temple and for other works, we have proposed a fund in the cabinet. When we present the next state budget, we will allot a corpus fund of Rs 500 crore for the temple management.”
State minister Suryabanshi Suraj said, “During the elections, we had said that we would reopen all four gates… All four gates of the temple are going to be opened today. All members of the Council Ministers are present here. The CM is also present. A corpus fund worth Rs. 500 crore has also been announced for development projects. We took the oath yesterday and we are opening the gates today.”
The previous BJD administration had continued to keep the four gates of the temple closed since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Majhi took oath as the Chief Minister of the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Odisha in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
Along with Majhi, two deputy Chief Ministers — Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida were also sworn in.
The oath-taking ceremony was held at Janata Maidan in Odisha’s Bhubaneshwar.
Odisha Governor Raghubar Das administered the oath to the first BJP Chief Minister of the state, along with the deputies.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Naveen Patnaik, who served as chief minister of Odisha for 24 years was also present on the stage.
The ceremony also witnessed the presence of several high-profile leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party including — Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Nitin Gadkari, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Dev Sai, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were among the dignitaries who arrived in Bhubaneswar to witness the event. (ANI)
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