Only recently, Prithviraj Chavan, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and senior Congress leader had landed himself in a soup, calling for all religious trusts of India to have their gold appropriated by the government to aid in the fight against COVID-19. The comments of the senior Congress leader irked a large section of society, particularly the priests and temple trust authorities. Some had even suggested that before anyone turns their eyes towards the temple coffers, money should instead be extracted from the Congress party.
Now, Prithviraj Chavan has been banned from entering the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir. The Mahant fraternity, taking strong objection to the comments of Chavan, decided to indefinitely bar Chavan and his family from entering the temple. Further, a former Mahant of the temple went on to call the Congress leader “mentally deranged”, according to Aaj Tak.
Chavan had, on Wednesday, tweeted, “Government must immediately appropriate all the gold lying with all the religious trusts in the country, worth at least $1trillion, according to the #WorldGoldCouncil. The gold can be borrowed through gold bonds at a low-interest rate. This is an emergency.” He said that it can be borrowed at the interest rate of 1-2% in the form of a loan. However, some did not like the idea. He had further stated, “If it is borrowed from these trusts at a nominal interest rate, the money can be generously spent on the lower middle and poor class to increase their spending capacity.”
#Stimulus.@PMOindia Govt. must immediately appropriate all the gold lying with all the Religious Trusts in the country, worth at least $1 trillion, according to the #WorldGoldCouncil. The gold can be borrowed through gold bonds at a low interest rate. This is an emergency.PC
— Prithviraj Chavan (@prithvrj) May 13, 2020
Although Chavan did not go to the extent of suggesting, unlike Subhash Ghai, that temples should ‘surrender’ their gold reserves to the government, he has nevertheless, initiated a brazen demand for robbing temples off their wealth.
The Mahants of Kashi Vishwanath Mandir have further called upon the pujaris of all Jyotirlingas to issue similar orders, banning Chavan from entering any temple that he seems so keen to have stripped off its gold reserves.
Major Hindu temples should take a cue from the decision of the Mahant fraternity of Kashi Vishwanath Mandir, and begin with banning Prithviraj Chavan from entering all temples across India. Be it Tirupati Tirumala, Somnath, Rameshwaram, Vaishno Devi, etc, all Mandirs must set an example and make it abundantly clear that a call for looting their coffers will not be tolerated.
In fact, why only Prithviraj Chavan? The major temples and Jyotirlingas should go ahead and ban all individuals and their families who seem to harbour similar sentiments, of having temples forcefully robbed. The virtue-signallers must first contemplate on how they are contributing to society, instead of birthing ideas of temple loot.
