By Sushil Kutty
Former YSRCP Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy left a ‘ladoo’ for TDP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and now there’s ‘big bawal’ in Andhra Pradesh with epicentre at the temple town of Tirupati, where Lord Venkateswara has been cynosure for forever. The ‘ladoo’ is prasadam, offerings to God, which is where the problem starts and ends for Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is fighting charges of desecrating the prasadam with beef tallow, fish oil and lard.
In 1857, Mangal Pandey refused to fight for the East India Company because beef tallow was used to grease bullets. Today, Chandrababu Naidu, who is getting on in age but is full of vim, has found a beef against the Tirupati ‘ladoo’. And that he has a son young enough to rival Jagan Mohan Reddy is working to his benefit. IT Minister Nara Lokesh has taken up the fight against Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was earlier attacked for having a Kejriwal-like taste in homesteads.
So, the gun is pointing at Jagan Mohan Reddy’s temple, point blank, with the Tirupati temple ‘ladoo’ laced with pig lard. Imagine the consequences if it wasn’t a temple. Sometimes some escapes are noteworthy for not turning out to be dangerous escapades, like this one with the ‘ladoo’.
What, however, shocked Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was the beef tallow in the Tirupati ‘ladoo’. Jagan Mohan Reddy couldn’t have known he was leaving behind a controversy. The temple town of Tirupati was allegedly desecrated and Jagan Mohan Reddy broke his crown! “Tirupati is now a battleground,” said people of a certain bent after a Gujarat lab spilled the beans on the ghee used to make the ‘ladoo prasadam’.
The Gujarat lab released its bombshell Tirupati ‘ladoo’ report on July 17, but it is only now that the bomb fell, so to speak. This was serious indiscretion and awful “desecration” of Lord Venkateswara, a Vishnu avatar, the temple, where politicians go to pray after becoming Prime Minister and Chief Minister, Governor and Mayor; where Bollywood superstars and Tollywood filmic dynasties frequent every now and then a movie hits the big-screen.
The Tirupati temple is a religious landmark on the map of India and it holds pride of place in the calendars of those who practice dengue, malaria and Aids, also called ‘Hinduism’. Ask Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s son, Udayanidhi. The Tirupati ‘ladoo’ wouldn’t leave him squeamish in the gut. Most likely, he would welcome praying at the temple five times a day, for the ‘ladoo prasadam’ alone!
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu isn’t amused. “We will get the temple sanitized,” was his first outburst. Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, whose yellow garb matches Lord Vishnu’s gold accoutrements, charged YSR with “corruption in tenders for buying adulterated ghee.” Pawan Kalyan did not mention that three lakh ladoos continue to be made daily. Instead, Kalyan labelled it “an insult to one of the most revered gods.”
There is a board that runs the temple. The board has formed a four-member panel to probe the makings of the ‘Tirupati ladoo’. Pawan Kalyan isn’t satisfied. He has called for the formation of a ‘Santana board’ to manage the affairs of all temples in the entirety of ‘Bharat’, a proposal which has the potential to find traction.
Pawan Kalyan is more Hindutva than Modi and Yogi will ever be. Will the Supreme Court suo moto take notice and pull up the Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister for making outlandish demands. Hindu temple funds are for the governments to milk and spend as they see fit. Even after a Hindu nationalist party has been at the helm for a decade nothing has changed. It is another matter that some churches and mosques are run with Hindu temple loot.
Now, suddenly beef tallow, pig lard, and fish oil have come to the aid even as there’s the biggest controversy to hit the Hindu temple world. It beats logic that it was the Tirupati temple board which appointed the Gujarat lab to test the Tirupati ‘ladoo’. Apparently there were multiple complaints against the world’s most famous ‘ladoo’.
The Gujarat lab, the Centre of Analysis and Learning in Livestock and Food or CALF, run by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government-run National Dairy Development Board, found that the “ghee” used in the Tirupati ‘ladoo’ made during Jagan-raj, contained animal fat, and not the ‘Fortune brand’ sunflower and soya oil. The ‘Fortune Brand’ belongs to the Adani Group.
Now, YSRCP is out of power and Naidu and Kalyan are attacking Jagan with the Tirupati ‘ladoo’. The white fatty tissue of pigs is a delicacy for those with a taste for pork, mostly Christians. Reports allege Jagan Mohan Reddy is a practicing Christian — not that being a Christian is the eighth or ninth or 10th sin. Some or the other animal fat is consumed day in and day out all across India by people of all faiths.
Nara Lokesh, is alleging that Tirupati Tirumala never had it so bad as under Jagan-rule. Today, there is no shortage of the ‘ladoo-prasadam’. “The Lord Venkateswaraswamy temple at Tirumala is our most sacred temple,” Lokesh posted on ‘X’. “Shame on Jagan and his YSRCP.”
Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena demanded “action” against Jagan Reddy and the YSRCP and declared that desecration of ‘Sanatan Dharma’ in any form will not be tolerated. The Bharatiya Janata Party couldn’t be left far behind. The party, which stands on the crutches of Janata Dal (U) and the TDP and Jana Sena, slammed the “unforgivable sin” committed by Jagan Reddy against the “very holy prasadam”. For the BJP, which is fighting elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, as also the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, this is the time to stand up for temples and the world’s most holy ‘ladoo’. (IPA Service)