He Should Eat Properly, Take Care: VK Pandian’s Advise to Sambit Patra On ‘Upvaas’ For Lord Jagannath

Bhubaneswar: Odisha 5T Chairman and BJD leader VK Pandian on Tuesday reacted to BJP leader Sambit Patra’s ‘upvaas’ to seek forgiveness from Mahaprabhu Jagannath and said Patra should take care and should eat properly and take care. Pandian said just three days before elections, he should not faint.

VK Pandian told ANI, “I think he should take care, it is too much of heat and dust. He should eat properly and take care…Three days before elections, he should not faint. He is a doctor, he should know what to do.”

#WATCH | On Sambit Patra’s ‘upvaas’ to seek forgiveness from Mahaprabhu Jagannath, 5T Chairman and BJD leader VK Pandian says “I think he should take care, it is too much of heat and dust. He should eat properly and take care…Three days before elections, he should not faint. He… pic.twitter.com/Nz587kt2v9

— ANI (@ANI) May 21, 2024

On being asked if BJD will escalate this issue, he said “Lord Jagannath can never be escalated and Lord Jagannath should always be above everything else. BJD never believes in doing politics over religion, especially Lord Jagannath.”

“The BJP is talking about Odia Asmita and Lord Jagannath is the symbol of Odia Asmita. CM Naveen Patnaik has always felt that we should keep our Gods outside politics. They are immortal and we are mortal, why we should mix both,” he said.

Pandian said the Odisha CM felt hurt when this statement was given as Naveen Patnaik is genuinely upset that Lord Jagannath has been dragged into this election so much.

Pandian added that the people of Odisha don’t like dragging religion or Mahaprabhu Jagannath in the elections… It is not the first time, it has happened. They did the same in the 2019 Panchayat Elections, they always link something or the other with religion, Lord Jagannath.

“The BJP is trying to electorally hit BJD and Naveen Patnaik by finding out something or the other. It is a political strategy they are trying to do,” he said.

The development comes after BJP leader Sambit Patra, who was in the soup for his ‘controversial’ remarks relating to Lord Jagannath, cleared the air around his statement, saying that he was apologetic for his ‘slip of the tongue’, and that he would offer penance in the name of Lord Jagannath as an apology.

Patra, the BJP candidate from Puri Lok Sabha seat, landed in a row in Odisha on Monday after he told a local news channel that “Lord Jagannath is a devotee (bhakt) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” He later described it as a “slip of the tongue.”

Speaking to ANI about the remark Monday night, Patra said, “Today one of my statements has become controversial. It was when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s roadshow came to an end in Puri and I was giving out bytes to several media channels.”

“I had given out bytes to almost 15-16 channels wherein I was repeating that Prime Minister Modi is an ardent devotee of Maha Prabhu Jagannath Ji. Even as the Chief Minister of Ahmedabad and even before that, PM Modi used to regularly visit and offer prayers at Lord Jagannath temple there in Ahmedabad,” Patra said.