Tirupati, October 31 (IANS). Media entrepreneur and philanthropist Bolineni Rajagopal Naidu has been appointed the new chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) board. This board manages the affairs of the richest Hindu temple in the world.
Telugu news channel TV5 owner B.R. Naidu will be the 54th Chairman of TTD Board.
The TDP-led coalition government has appointed 24 members to the TTD board. The board includes 10 people from three neighboring states. Of these, five members are from Telangana, three from Karnataka and two from Tamil Nadu. Adit Desai from Gujarat has also been appointed member.
Three MLAs from Andhra Pradesh have been made members of the TTD board. They are Jyotula Nehru, Vemireddy Prashanth Reddy and M.S. Raju.
The names of former minister Pannabaka Lakshmi and Bharat Biotech co-founder and managing director Suchitra Ella also figure in the list of members.
B.R. Naidu will become the chairman of the board in place of Bhumana Karunakar Reddy. He thanked the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government for giving him this opportunity.
He said that since he was born and brought up in Tirupati, he knows everything very well. He Chief Minister N. Expressed gratitude to Chandrababu Naidu, Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and Human Resource Development Minister Nara Lokesh.
Karunakar Reddy, the then Tirupati MLA from the YSR Congress Party, was sworn in as TTD chairman in August 2023. Earlier he had held this post from 2006 to 2008.
Since the Chairman and members of the TTD Board are appointed by the state’s ruling party, the previous body was automatically dissolved as power passed from the hands of the YSR Congress Party to the Telugu Desam Party-led NDA.
The new body was appointed soon after the controversy over alleged adulteration of ghee used to make laddu prasadam at the Tirumala temple.
Chief Minister Naidu claimed on September 18 that when the YSR Congress Party was in power, ghee mixed with animal fat was used to make laddu prasadam. This spread anger among devotees across the country.
Following the allegations, TTD conducted purification rituals in the temple premises.
However, the YSR Congress Party rejected the allegations and accused Naidu of tarnishing the sanctity of the temple.
The state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of police on 25 September to investigate the allegations.
However, the Supreme Court ordered a CBI-monitored investigation into the allegations.
–IANS
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