Temples administration: VHP top brass calls on Kanchi seer

Chennai: As part of its efforts to ‘free’ Hindu temples and religious institutions from government control, senior office-bearers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) recently called on the Kanchi Shankaracharya to seek his guidance on the issue, the organisation said on Monday. The VHP central leadership is meeting Hindu seers and saints to seek their guidance to evolve an alternate support structure on the matter, where the temples will be administered by the Hindu society, VHP said in a press release. “As part of this guidance seeking program, Alok Kumar, the Central Working President, along with Joint General Secretary Sthanumalayan, Organizing Secretary South India, PM Nagarajan and VHP Workers from Tamil Nadu have met His Holiness Jagathguru Shri Shankaracharya of Kanchi and sought his blessings and guidance on this long-standing issue,” it said. The meeting was held recently. The Board of Trustees of VHP is of definite view that the Hindu temples and religious institutions should be freed from the government control, it said. “The government cannot be the owner of the temples. The governments and the courts of law can have some minimal necessary role, when required. What and how much would that role be, must be considered by all stakeholders,” the saffron outfit added. It appealed to the Centre to make a law to hand over the temples and religious institutions to the Hindu society. Further, the organisation urged the Tamil Nadu government to drop plans to monetise temple ornaments in the state by melting them into gold bars and also demanded that the shrines, closed during the weekends on account of COVID-19 restrictions, be opened for the public on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well. The government has already allowed cinema theatres and state-run TASMAC liquor outlets to function on these days, even as it has allowed schools for classes I-VIII to be reopened from November 1, the VHP pointed out.