Hyderabad::
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has set up a special investigation team to probe irregularities at the Tirupati temple. There have been allegations that animal fat is being used to mix ghee for temple laddoos.
Earlier, the ruling Telugu Desam Party had alleged that former Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Trust chairperson Bhumana Karunakar Reddy and former executive director AV Dharma Reddy had committed several irregularities in the temple management over the past five years.
The party had said they would be held accountable.
The Chief Minister had said he would “clean up” the system, alleging that irregularities had crept in during the rule of the erstwhile YSRCP government. “Many not so holy things have been done in Tirumala” in the last five years, he had said.
He also accused his predecessor at the top post, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, of appointing people close to him as TTD board members and using it for political gains.
Last week, the Chief Minister had red-flagged a report from a state laboratory in Gujarat, which said that samples of ghee from Tirupati tested positive for fish oil, beef suet and lard during the tenure of the erstwhile YS Jaganmohan Reddy government.
The report was dated July 17 – Mr. Reddy's YSR Congress has referred to it and questioned the delay.
