Onkar Singh / rediff

New Delhi, Apr 6: Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh could not begin his rath yatra as per the schedule released by the party on April 6 as the district administration denied permission to take out the yatra from Puri.
Initial reports from the BJP headquarters in New Delhi said the Orissa administration had said that barring the rath yatra of Lord Jagannath, no other rath could be allowed to roll down the streets of Puri.

The district administration's decision may force BJP to scrap the Puri route and begin the yatra from Bhubaneswar instead.

Surprisingly, state Chief Minister Navin Patnaik had been silent about the rath yatra over the last few weeks. Even the state BJP unit did not think it was necessary to take up the matter with him before finalizing the programme.

When contacted in New Delhi, party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who has been entrusted with the task of coordinating from the party headquarters, said they were in touch with Patnaik and hoped to sort out the matter soon.