New Delhi: Union Health Minister JP Nadda has asked Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for a detailed report on allegations there was animal fat in ghee used to make the Tirupati laddoos. The laddoos are ‘prasadam‘ to the deity at the temple and offered to crores of devotees who visit every year.
Food Minister Pralhad Joshi has called for a thorough inquiry. “Whatever the Chief Minister said is a matter of serious concern. A detailed enquiry is required and the culprit should be punished.”
Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party this week cited a July report from a government-run lab in Gujarat that said samples of the ghee used when his rival – YSR Congress Party boss YS Jagan Mohan Reddy – was in power, contained traces of beef tallow, fish oil, and pig fat, or lard.
Chandrababu Naidu and his deputy, Jana Sena Party leader Pawan Kalyan, have accused Jagan Mohan Reddy of desecrating the temple and ‘sanatan dharm‘.
Union Minister and BJP National General Secretary Sanjay Bandi has called it an “unforgivable sin”. He also claimed a communal angle, alleging adulteration of the ghee was because “few people from other religions (had been) inducted” into the board.
Bhanu Prakash Reddy, a BJP MP who was on the board of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam – the government trust that manages the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple and others in the state, has demanded that a police complaint be filed against the former Chief Minister.
The YSR Congress, meanwhile, has hit back hard against the flood of allegations.
Rajya Sabha MP YV Subba Reddy, who was Chairperson of the TTD for four years, said it is “unimaginable to even say ‘animal fat was used in consecrated food offered daily to the deity and in laddoos given to devotees’”. Reddy blasted the Chief Minister for the “heinous’ claim.
Reddy also declared that it was Chandrababu Naidu, in fact, who had damaged the sanctity of the temple, and affected crores of devotees, by making such outrageous comments, according to an NDTV report.
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