At age 82, B.S. Sridhar Raje Urs was forced to take this step owing to shopkeeper’s refusal to vacate shop for facilitating construction of Sri Venugopalaswamy Temple Rajagopura

Mysore/Mysuru: Disgusted with the adjacent shopkeeper’s refusal and defiance to vacate the shop for facilitating the construction of a bigger temple Rajagopura, the city’s Sri Venugopalaswamy Temple Committee President B.S. Sridhar Raje Urs today staged a day-long solo hunger strike in front of the temple on Thyagaraja Road, K.R. Mohalla in the city.

The octogenarian sat on the dharna barefoot with a copy of Bhagavad Gita, portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Swami  Vivekananda on the right side table and a walking stick on his left hand.

Sridhar Raje Urs said that a bigger Rajagopura is being built atop the historical temple, for which the shopkeeper adjacent to the temple was asked to vacate three years ago. The shopkeeper, who has taken the petty shop on rent,  had also given a written undertaking then that he would vacate the shop soon and thus facilitate  the construction of the Rajagopura.

But despite several notices to him, the shopkeeper has remained defiant and has failed to vacate his shop, which has delayed the construction of the Rajagopura, he said adding that he will intensify his one-man protest by launching an indefinite hunger stir from tomorrow, if the shopkeeper does not vacate the shop by  tomorrow morning. 

It is unfortunate that Sridhar Raje Urs, who is also serving as the President of Karnataka Ursu Mahamandali Trust, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha in Gokulam and Maharaja High School and PU College Old Students Association among others, had to resort to a stir at an advanced age of 82 for a long-standing cause of construction of Rajagopura, considering the popularity, importance and history of temple.

It may be mentioned that former K.R. MLA S.A. Ramdas had performed bhoomi puja for the construction of the Rajagopura last week.