Rumours About Tirupati Temple Trigger Political Slugfest

God, gold and government are an explosive mix at the best of times; add a spoonful of troublesome priest to the cauldron, and you have quite the drama of woe. The stage is Tirupati Balaji temple, set among the seven hills of Andhra Pradesh바카라�s Chittoor district바카라�one of the world바카라�s richest shrines, as we are so oft reminded, where benevolent, bejewelled Venkateshwara, clad in 1,000 kg of gold, presides over an annual harvest of a little more than Rs 3,000 crore, while being visited by 60,000바카라�70,000 devotees each day. The players? The politicians of the state, with chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu at their head, and the Centre, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), which manages the temple, and former chief priest (and microbiology PhD) A.V. Ramana Deekshitulu바카라�dismissed acrimoniously in May, and now flinging acrim­ony at the government.

The latest act centres around the TTD바카라�s apparent decision to close the temple for six days in August for sampoksham, a ritual that must be conducted once every 12 years. The TTD is an autonomous body, but opponents of the incumbent Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government were quick to allege the hand of CM Naidu in this move. 바카라�The decision to close the temple for a week is nothing but a part of the TDP바카라�s loot,바카라� alleges Vijayasai Reddy, an MP and senior leader of the opposition YSR Congress Party. Reddy is continuing in the vein of his own earlier accusations; in May, when Deekshitulu claimed that a diamond stud worth crores had gone missing from the temple, Reddy made the audacious charge that it would be found if the CM바카라�s house was promptly raided바카라�provoking the government to threaten legal action.

But politicians aren바카라�t the only ones to question the TTD바카라�s decision. Swami Paripoornananda, head of Kakinada바카라�s Sri Peetham and a critic of the TTD, claims, 바카라�Shutting the temple for such a long period for ­sampoksham has been unh­eard of since its founding in the 13th century.바카라�

The chief minister, for his part, has dismissed reports of the planned six-day closure as 바카라�misconstrued바카라� and 바카라�figments of the imagination바카라�, clarifying that the temple would remain open for most of the day, from 6 am to 6 pm, and that the sampoksham rituals would be carried out late at night. But there are theories that the government concocted the whole episode to div­ert attention from issues like the unceremonious rem­oval of chief priest Dee­kshitulu and the alleged theft of jewels from the temple.

National politics makes all this controversy even murkier. Tirupati has always been a locus of conflict between the state바카라�s political parties, but there have of late been rumours of the Sangh parivar trying to extend its influence over the temple. Deekshitulu바카라�s closeness to the Sangh parivar was allegedly the main factor in setting Naidu against him. And reports that the Centre was planning to take over the temple by putting it under the Archaeological Survey of India, following the TDP바카라�s exit from the ruling NDA coalition, only made matters worse.

And so goes another episode in the temple바카라�s bumpy recent history. It has alw­ays been in the spotlight for one reason or other since the TTD decided to remove the 1,000-pillared mandapam opposite the main temple a decade-and-a-half ago, during Naidu바카라�s first term as chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Colourful characters to feature have included the notorious 바카라�Dollar바카라� Seshadri, a former TTD superintendent who was suspended in 2008 alongside three other officials for allegedly misappropriating 300 gold coins, although the government decided to drop its disciplinary proceedings against Seshadri last August. But the pol­itical slugfest that has been the fallout of this latest ignominy is unlikely to stop anytime soon, with elections around the corner and Naidu바카라�s opponents honing weapons to wield against his party.

By M.S. Shanker in Hyderabad