Odisha MLA offers 15k coconuts at temple to match winning vote margin

Making offerings to deities in order to get a wish fulfilled is an age-old practice of devout Hindus. There are several instances of well-known personalities making big offerings including gold and jewellery to the temples in India.

However, there is one legislator in Odisha who hogged the limelight by going all out to offer over 15,000 coconuts to Lord Varahalakshmi Narasimha Swamy at Simhachalam in Visakhapatnam.

While offering coconut to the deities is a common practice by the devotees in India, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLA from Sorada, Purnachandra Swain had made a wish to match his winning vote margin with as many coconuts, to be offered at the temple.

He went to the temple with more than 700 supporters from Sorada and Bhanjanagar Assembly Constituencies and offered the coconuts on Thursday on the occasion of Nrusingha Chaturdasi.

As per reports, Swain regularly made wishes at the same temple. He first won in 2009 elections from a BJD ticket and offered 4100 coconuts. Then he went on to win the 2014 elections and offered 16,000 coconuts.

Speaking to OTV, Swain said, “People worship their respective Gods as per their beliefs. Naveen Patnaik had given me a BJD ticket in 2009. I won that election by 4100 votes and offered as many coconuts at the temple.”

“Similarly, I won the 2014 election by 16,000 votes and offered the same number of coconuts at the temple. However, I could not do the same after I won the 2019 election because of some family problems and Covid restrictions. I finally got an opportunity to fulfil my wish on the Nrusingha Chaturdasi. I distributed prasad to all the devotees who visited the temple and prayed to God to make Naveen Patnaik the Chief Minister of Odisha again,” Swain added.