తాతా వారి తామా తందానా

Are the courts needed to set right even temple politics?

It seems that the courts will have to step in to set right the arrogance of a few which affect the faith of many in our temples and in basic human values. The case in point being the recent sham which is being tried to pass of as an election at the Sai temple. It seems that suddenly the love of temple has affected almost over 150 trustees of the temple. While hardly no more than 20 show up for the BOT meetings over 150 votes were polled during the recent elections. No marks for guessing what kind of ballots were cast. Over 60% of the ballots cast were absentee ballots.

The processes that have been ignored are far too many to list, however here is a sample of how this happened. Apparently a lot of ballots were hand delivered to chairman of the Election Committee instead of being sent via USPS. Also these were literally stuffed in his mail box giving new meaning to the word ballot stuffing. The fact that all of them came together indicates that someone has literally rounded up the ballots from the trustees. Hey if you look at the process probably they were not even trustees. You can literally request a ballot and the Election Committee has no way of verifying the address to which the ballot is being mailed. There is no way to check the signatures of the request forms either. Word is that the Executive Committee wanted to cancel the elections and call for new ones due to these irregularities, however internal fights and profit makers pushed the Election Committee to go ahead with this sham. One of the Election Committee members even resigned in protest.

What does it take for the people of Atlanta to realize that playing fair is more important than winning? An arrest maybe? That should not be difficult given the fraud and abuse of power that has been happening. Did any of you know that the jewelry put under Baba’s statue during construction has been removed and melted? We wondered how much in damages will the jury assess for emotional damage to those devotees. Apparently even the Executive Committee was not privy to this dastardly deed. The then President and Treasurer thought it not necessary to do so. Who cares for the small fry, namely the devotees?

The temple has become a place to expand everyone’s business. Apparently the word “conflict of interest” has no place in this temple. Make contacts through the temple machinery spread your business. We wonder if service is ever a motive for any of these people. And the latest news on the grapevine is that all hell will break loose in the form of a lawsuit. Will these people ever realize that the temple that rose to financial stability in a short period of time can fall down similarly if egos are not kept aside? Stay tuned for the latest happenings at the temple.