Jagan Cancels Tirumala Visit, Naidu Calls For Respecting Temple Rituals

The visit, supposed to take place on Saturday amid growing demand from Hindu organisations and Deputy Chief Minister K Pawan Kalyan for following rituals followed by Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) and signing on a declaration before visiting Tirumala for darshan on a prescribed form required for non-Hindus going to the sanctum sanctorum. They had accused that when he was the Chief Minister, he never made declarations in the form, violating the temple norms

Amaravati: There seems to be no end to the trading of charges against each other by the ruling TDP and its allies over the confirmation on the use of animal fat in the making of Tirumala laddus during the erstwhile regime, former Chief Minister and YSRCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday charging the alliance with making efforts to tarnish his image by malicious propaganda announced cancellation of his visit to Tirumala.

The visit, supposed to take place on Saturday amid growing demand from Hindu organisations and Deputy Chief Minister K Pawan Kalyan for following rituals followed by Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) and signing on a declaration before visiting Tirumala for darshan on a prescribed form required for non-Hindus going to the sanctum sanctorum. They had accused that when he was the Chief Minister, he never made declarations in the form, violating the temple norms.

The raging controversy took a new twist with rise in tensions over Jagan’s wideline publicised visit to Tirumala on Saturday and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu posted on X asking all to adhere to Agama Shastra rituals and TTD norms. He did not mention the name of Jagan.

In a statement, Naidu said later Tirumala temple is the largest shrine in the world for the Hindus and the people of Andhra Pradesh are fortunate enough to have such a divine place in the State. “My government accords highest priority to safeguard the sanctity of the Lord of the Seven Hills and to preserve the sentiments of the devotees. Each pilgrim who visits Tirumala for the Darshan of the Lord takes utmost care to follow the conventions and traditions to offer prayers to the Lord,” he said.

Maintaining that each pilgrim has the bounden responsibility to protect the sanctity of this world famous pilgrim centre, the Chief Minister said and stated that he makes a fervent appeal to every devotee to rigidly follow the temple norms, traditions of Agama Sastra and the TTD guidelines. “My sincere request to all pilgrims is that no devotee should act against the sentiments and temple rituals,” Naidu said.

At a hurriedly convened press conference at Tadepalli, Jagan said the alliance government was trying to put spokes in his plans to visit Tirumala and declared that “my religion is humanity and he believes in all the religions though he belongs to Christianity.”

Stating that he wanted to visit Tirumala to uphold its sanctity after Naidu’s attempt to commit sin by making allegations on the world famous Tirumala laddus, he said he decided to cancel the visit to avoid any disruptions and safety concerns.

Describing NDA rule as demon rule under Naidu, he said fear psychosis was created in Tirupati with the police issuing warnings to them not to accompany him and imposing some of them under house arrest. He also questioned how laddu sample tests were done by NDDB in Gujarat for the first time instead of a Mysore-based lab.