Some people more equal than others for Siddhivinayak temple trust

VIPs must not come in the way of the deity and the faithful. The government thinks so, as does the lay worshipper. Both are keen on special arrangements for important people to be done away with. But the Siddhivinayak temple trust has struck a discordant note.

After the government banned special darshans for VIPs at the Shirdi Saibaba shrine, following it up with an order to the Siddhivinayak  authorities to stop such darshans on Tuesdays, and on Sankashti and Angarki Chaturthi days, the temple’s trust has written to the law and judiciary department stating it wants to continue with the practice of allowing VIPs to jump queue. DNA has a copy of the letter.

Every VIP visit holds up the queue for at least 20 minutes, said an official in the law department. Ordinary devotees have to wait for five to six hours for darshan.

“The government wanted to do away with the practice to ensure fairness. It causes a lot of inconvenience to ordinary devotees,’’ the official said.

According to the government circular, the temple should not allow any devotee to enter it in a special queue. It makes it mandatory for the authorities to put up a board outside the temple, listing the days on which it is expected to be crowded.

It also threatened the trust with action if it did not comply with the order.

Temple sources said more than 10,000 passes for darshan have been issued to VIPs. Some passes have been issued for a fee.

But temple trust chairman Subhash Mayekar denied this. “We allot VIP passes only to people who contribute to temple funds,” he said.

But, he said: “Many VIPs, including the president of India, are entitled to a certain category of protection. It will not be possible to allow them darshan from the general queue. We have five gates to avoid problems with VIP darshan. Ordinary devotees are not affected.”

He said the trust has written a letter to law and judiciary minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil explaining its stand on why a ban on VIP darshan is not justified.

However, the temple trust’s chief executive officer, Mangesh Shinde, said: “After we received the circular, we immediately stopped VIP darshan.”