The Uttarakhand Congress on Monday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party for constructing a new Kedarnath temple in Delhi and accused it of tampering with the Hindu Vedic traditions, reported The Indian Express.

The Kedarnath temple is one of the four major Hindu shrines in Uttarakhand. The Kedarnath shrine is dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had last week laid the foundation of a Kedarnath temple in Delhi.

The temple is meant for elderly or infirm pilgrims who cannot make the Kedarnath pilgrimage, Surendra Rautela, who is the president of the Kedarnath Dham Trust Delhi, said, according to The Indian Express.

However, the Congress on Monday alleged that the BJP was tampering with the Hindu tradition and franchising the Kedarnath temple.

“Just as the BJP previously created dozens of its own shankaracharyas, in addition to the traditional four [by going] against Vedic tradition, they are now tampering with the glory of jyotirlings,” The Indian Express quoted Congress spokespersons Garima Mehra Dasauni and Sheeshpal Bisht as saying on Monday.

The shankaracharyas head four shrines called peeths situated in Joshimath in Uttarakhand, Dwarka in Gujarat, Puri in Odisha and Sringeri in Karnataka. The shrines were founded by the eighth-century religious scholar Adi Shankaracharya.

Kedarnath is a jyotirling, which according to Hindu religious texts, is from where the deity Shiva emerged.

The party said that if the BJP wanted to build a temple, it could have been like the Akshardham in Delhi.

“Why name it after our char dham?” the spokespersons asked. “The Kedarnath dham has its own history and beliefs. It is not a franchise that you can establish anywhere.”

On Tuesday, Dhami said that the Congress did not have any real matters to discuss and hence it was trying to create a controversy regarding the Kedarnath temple in Delhi, reported ANI.

“It has been said before that Kedarnath dham can only be in Kedarnath on the banks of Mandakini Saraswati,” the chief minister told reporters. “Rest of the temples can continue to be built.”

Besides the Congress, some Hindu religious priests also opposed the naming of the temple in Delhi as Kedarnath.

The priest community was angry that the name of Kedarnath, one of the 12 sacred jyotirlings, is being misused for monetary gains, Brijesh Sati, the general secretary of the Uttarakhand Char Dham Teerth Purohit Maha Panchayat, told The Hindu.

“We don’t have a problem in making Shiva temples,” he told the newspaper. “But they cannot replicate Kedarnath. If this is allowed, it will create confusion among devotees.”

Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, the shankaracharya of the Jyotir Math in Joshimath, also opposed the move.

“It is in the Vedas that Kedarnath sits in the Himalayas,” he said, reported The Hindu. “I just want to tell those who want to take Kedarnath to the plains that their act is criminal.”

Amid the backlash from the priests, Rautela on Tuesday said that if sentiments were being hurt by naming the temple in Delhi as Kedarnath, then the trust would change the name, reported ANI.

Notably, the controversy comes as the state prepares for another Assembly bye-poll in Kedarnath, following the demise of BJP MLA Shaila Rani. On Saturday, the BJP lost the bye-poll in the Badrinath seat to the Congress.