Bengal to remove ‘dham’ from Digha Jagannath temple name

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal will remove the word “dham” from the name of the Jagannath temple in Digha, The Hindu reported on Tuesday.

The temple had been built by the previous Trinamool Congress government.

The decision to drop “dham” was taken by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari following a request from BJP leader and Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, the newspaper quoted the state secretariat as saying.

The Lok Sabha MP of Odisha’s Puri, where the main temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Jagannath is located, had on Tuesday handed a letter from Majhi to Adhikari.

Patra said on social media that Majhi had earlier written to the TMC government in West Bengal, urging it to reconsider the name. However, no decision was taken at that time, he added.

“There is only chaar dham [four divine abodes] in Hindu Sanatana,” The Hindu quoted Adhikari as saying. “In 2025, this temple was inaugurated and named Jagannath Dham. This move hurt the sentiment of all the Hindus in Odisha, and also the ones who stay in Bengal from Odisha. Nobody should play with the core Sanatana ideology. Now the government has changed and we have decided to act on this matter.”

Sanatana Dharma is a term some people use as a synonym for Hinduism.

The temple in Digha...

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