A senior priest of the Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand has accused the top management of the Shri Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) of committing a Rs 125 crore scam in the name of gold layering work inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
The priest, Santosh Trivedi, who also serves as the vice president of the Char Dham Mahapanchayat, alleged that the gold plates installed inside the sanctum sanctorum were actually made of brass. Last year, the silver plates covering the walls of Kedarnath’s sanctum sanctorum were replaced with gold plates donated by a Mumbai-based businessman who did not wish to be named. The state government approved the businessman’s offer to donate 230 kg of gold to the temple. The latter stated that it was his “long-time wish” to see the walls of Kedarnath’s sanctum sanctorum covered in gold. A few local priests, however, opposed the move, claiming that gold was a symbol of wealth and worldly pleasure and it was against the ancient values of the temple that symbolise detachment from the physical world.The claims are refuted by the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) in a press note. The committee claimed that scam accusations are part of misinformation spread on social media platforms.