Will end tout raj in Kalighat complex: Min

Kolkata: State cabinet minister Swapan Dasgupta said on Sunday that mafia control of the Kalighat temple complex will be a thing of the past.

“There is a law-and-order issue here, and a great amount of ‘tola-baji’ (extortion). It is very unfortunate, I have to say, that there is a sense of mafia control in the Kalighat complex. We have to free ourselves of this,” Dasgupta said, adding, “The Hindu devotees who come here — in fact, they come from across the country — are being harassed and made to pay even for a darshan, which they are sometimes denied if they are unable to pay. We will not let this happen. We will improve this. Trinamool netas are all heads of committees here. Hopefully, that will be history.”

Dasgupta had earlier broached the Kalighat master plan to develop the complex.

“The Kalighat temple is of immense significance to Hindus. Around 60,000 people visit this Shaktipith daily, but there is no infrastructure here. In Ayodhya, Kashi, Ujjain, Kamakhya, and Puri, the infrastructure around these places for tourists, like hotels and rest houses, has been developed. In a way, locals are also being denied business opportunities here,” he said, adding that he would consult residents before firming up the master plan.

Dasgupta’s statements found immediate resonance. A resident of Mahim Halder Lane said, “These third parties, known as ‘paladars’, are often found overcharging devotees when they pay pranami (a voluntary monetary offering). Then there is tout-raj, too.”

An old sevayat (traditional temple servitors or priests) agreed, saying, “This should not happen in a temple like the Kali Mandir. If there were a fixed entry fee for devotees, similar to the Tirupati temple in South India, unwanted incidents could be avoided.”

There is no official govt-run VIP or online booking system for Kalighat temple. Skip-the-line access, often called ‘Special Darshan’ or ‘Shighra Darshan’, is typically arranged locally through temple priests or pandas, middlemen, and touts for Rs 300-Rs 2,000.

A section of priests have also said there should be transparency and monitoring on how the ‘pala badal’ takes place at the temple. There are about 500 sevayats who sometimes sell their hereditary right (pala) to perform the daily worship and rituals to a third party.