UDIPI: Visvesha Tirtha Swami of Pejawar Math sought to clear the misconceptions that the people are harbouring over the ownership of the Sri Krishna Math/Temple even though the Siddaramaiah government has made it clear that the government did not want to take over the temple.

Addressing presspersons here, he said that many wrongly believed that the Sri Krishna Math/Temple was earlier under the control of the government, like the Kukke Subrahmanya and Kollur temples, and that the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa had de-notified it. But the fact was that the Sri Krishna Math/Temple had been under the control of the Ashta Maths of Udupi for the last 800 years.

The swamiji said that an official of the Muzrai Department had included the Sri Krishna Math/Temple in the list of notified temples without bringing the matter to the notice of higher officials when the S.M. Krishna Government was in power.

He drew allegations that this official sought the then Paryaya seer for a bribe of Rs. 50,000 to which the latter refused. Hence, the officer had included the temple in the notified list.

This matter had not come to the notice of Mr. Krishna either. When Mr. Krishna learnt about it, he decided to denotify the Sri Krishna Math/Temple. But before he could do so, his tenure came to an end, he said.

Though the N. Dharam Singh Government wanted to denotify the Sri Krishna Math/Temple, it could not do so because of various factors, including demolition of “Kanaka Gopura”. The Krishna Math/Temple was finally denotified when the Yeddyurappa Government was in power.

He said that the Supreme Court had held that the Krishna Temple/Math was under the administration of the Ashta Maths, even as it was brought under the purview of the Harijan Temple Entry Act by the then Madras Government.

He said that he had invited Mr. Siddaramaiah to discuss the matter legally. Though a journalist of a weekly had deliberately put this question to Mr. Siddaramaiah to stoke unnecessary controversy, the latter had firmly said that he had not thought about it. “I congratulate Mr. Siddaramaiah for it,” he said.