YSR Congress president Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday called off his scheduled visit to the Tirumala temple. The visit was supposed to be an atonement for remarks by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that animal fat was used in the preparation of the famed laddoos offered as prasad at the shrine.
Reddy, who addressed a press conference on Friday, said he was being denied permission to visit the temple, but Naidu’s party termed this an “utter fabrication.” Political tempers rose following demands by the TDP and its ally, the BJP, that Reddy sign a declaration declaring him a Hindu before access to the temple was allowed. According to the opposition, this was in line with the restriction imposed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which administers the shrine.
While the latter is an age-old rule, new signboards declaring the same cropped up near the temple after the chief minister announced his visit to the shrine. Naidu insisted that his administration would not give in to demands that may hurt Hindu sentiments and bound all visitors to adhere to the shrine’s traditions.
According to reports, police served notices to YSR Congress leaders invoking Section 30 of the Police Act governing public gatherings in anticipation of party members congregating along the route for statewide atonement rituals over Naidu’s so-called “sin.”
In his address, Reddy claimed that the laddoo controversy takes away the sheen from Naidu’s 100 days in office, stating unequivocally that the latter’s claims were unfounded and to satisfy political interests. He asked why the lab results on the ghee used to make the laddoos had not been released yet and accused Naidu of tarnishing the image of the temple.
Andhra Pradesh BJP chief D. Purandeswari said, “There is nothing new in asking non-Hindus to declare so. It has always been there and was only followed seriously.” TDP spokesperson Jyothsna Tirunagari denied the allegations of denial of permission to Reddy as baseless and false and called them “imagining conspiracies.”
