Priests Oppose UP Govt's Plan to Set up Trust For Management of Vrindavan's Banke Bihari Temple

New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to set up a trust for the management of Banke Bihari Mandir in Vrindavan has sparked opposition from priests in Mathura who has termed the move of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state as “anti-Brahmin.”

“It was because of the penance of our ancestors that God had appeared here. The temple became revered under their supervision, but the government is now taking it over on the pretext of regulating its management,” said Tarachand Goswami, the former chairman of the temple on Wednesday (June 4) reported The Telegraph.

Another priest, Vishnu Goswami accused the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government of deliberately trying to snatch the livelihood of Brahmins.

Last week, the state government had cleared an ordinance that paved the way for setting up the Shri Banke Bihariji Mandir Nyas Trust. The trust is entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the management of the shrine and its everyday rituals.

Priests from the Goswami sect have been managing the temple since the last few hundred years. Some Goswami priests have said that if the government didn’t review its decision to take over the temple’s management, they will take away the idol, which they say was installed by their ancestors in 1864.

A government that confiscates temples cannot be secular. The government is constantly trying to regulate religion with an ulterior motive. The government appears against the Goswami tradition and wants to have its official priests,” said Swami Avimukteshwaranand, the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand who has been staying in Mathura since last few days.

The government has said that the trust is essential for the construction of a Banke Bihari Corridor around the temple at a cost of Rs. 500 crore.

Earlier this year, the BJP-led Union government has passed The Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025 amid fierce opposition of the Muslim community and members of the opposition.

Independent MP in Rajya Sabha Kapil Sibal had said during the debate that there is a difference between an auqaf and trust. Sibal had slammed the provision in the Bill that said that only Muslims can donate properties as Waqf.

“In auqaf the land that was donated it belongs to God. It does not belong to the Trust. You cannot sell it ever unlike a Trust. Waqf property can be donated for religious purposes,” he said as vice president and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar asked him to conclude his speech.

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