MUMBAI: Amid the Ram Mandir donation controversy over alleged embezzlement of cash and valuables from donation boxes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Saturday alleged that donations worth Rs 18 crore were being siphoned off every year from Mumbai’s famous Siddhivinayak Temple. The temple is headed by former Shiv Sena MLA Sada Sarvankar and is managed by a trust comprising state government-appointed members. Raj also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, questioning why he had not spoken about the alleged theft at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Addressing an MNS gathering, Raj read out a letter that he claimed was written by the Siddhivinayak Temple Board of Trustees to deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, seeking a high-level inquiry into the alleged theft of money from the temple’s donation boxes. “Sir, we, the undersigned, are all trustees of Siddhivinayak Trust Temple, Prabhadevi… you have appointed us as trustees. We are trying to live up to your faith. We have been successful to some extent in increasing the income of the temple by 35%. ..Income?…some employees have been caught stealing money from the temple’s donation box. Before these employees were caught, the amount in the donation box every Wednesday was within Rs 50 lakh. However, after these employees were caught, the amount in the donation box has reached around Rs 1.5 crore in the last three weeks. This means that earlier some amount was being lost from the total money deposited in the donation box every week. Due to this, the temple was losing about Rs 18 crore every year, and we strongly suspect that the threads of this are at the senior level. We, the board of trustees, expect you to take serious note of this entire matter and investigate it at the senior level,” Raj quoted from the letter during his speech. “This letter is from the board of trustees of Siddhivinayak Temple. That is, Rs 18 crores are stolen from Siddhivinayak Temple every year. We go there as devotees, put donations in the donation box and such thefts happen here. These people are looting all the temples. Our people or students go to the temple before exams or during jobs and pray to God to get me a job, but today thefts are happening in the same temple. The people in the temple itself are committing these thefts. Is this our religion? These are the temples of our religion? So what will happen if this is the situation of the country? I think it is necessary for all of us to think about this together,” Raj said. Sarvankar did not respond to Raj Thackeray’s allegations.
