Sadhguru lauds Uttarakhand CM for freeing 51 temples; urges other states to follow suit

After Uttarakhand CM Tirath Singh Rawat revoked a law of his predecessor former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, freeing 51 temples from state government's control, spiritual leader Sadhguru - founder of Isha Foundation welcomed the decision expressing his gratitude to all those who had supported the 'Free Temples' movement. 

Taking to Twitter, Sadhguru in a video message said, "This is a very big step for the Hindu astha, since it should be in the hands of the community. If the government sees tourism potential, they can build infrastructure, make transportation convinient, arrange accommodation but the temple itself should be in the hands of the devotees. I am glad the Uttarakhand government realizes this and my congratulations and blessings to CM Tirath Singh. This is truly wonderful and I wish more chief ministers move in this direction," he said. 

Earlier today, in a big decision, Tirath Singh Rawat revoked the Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act freeing 51 temples including Haridwar and Badrinath from the state government's control. "The government is going to take a big decision regarding the Devasthanam board. We decided to free 51 temples from govt control," said Rawat after the meeting of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad Mandal in Haridwar

Sadhguru's 'Free Tamil Nadu Temples' campaign

Notably, earlier this week, Sadhguru had interacted with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on the issue of freeing Temples of Tamil Nadu from the state government's control. Here he had questioned why Hindu temples are still under government control while other religions have authority over their religious institutions. 

The spiritual leader has also initiated a campaign- 'Free Tamil Nadu Temples' based on a recent report of the state government in the Madras High Court which highlighted the deteriorating state of the temples of the state. Quoting the government report, Sadhguru had revealed that almost 34,000 temples had only one person each to handle the affairs. The puja, caretaking, security, and other work of the temple was being managed by a single person, and his salary was less than the minimum wages given under MGNREGA, according to the report.