Tirupati, Feb 11 YSR Congress Party leader and former chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Bhumana Karunakar Reddy slammed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for trying to draw political mileage from the Tirupati laddu issue.
On the arrest of four persons by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the alleged adulteration of laddus, he said nowhere in their remand report there was mention of the adulteration of ghee used for making the sacred sweet. This shows that Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan had been misleading the people and politicising the issue, Karunakar Reddy told media persons on Tuesday.
The YSRCP leader said it was Chandrababu Naidu who first claimed that the ghee used for preparing the laddu contained animal fat drawing the ire of the Supreme Court which eventually ordered a probe into the issue by the SIT. However, there is no mention of adulteration in the remand reports of the four persons arrested by the SIT, he said.
He claimed that the previous government under the leadership of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had taken all precautions to safeguard the quality of the ghee. “We improved the quality control measures by increasing the number of sample collection points and multiple labs and upgrading them,” said the former TTD chairman.
Karunakar Reddy claimed that they rejected truck-loads of ghee on 19 occasions after they failed the quality control tests. In such a scenario, the question of adulteration does not arise, he said and reiterated that Chandrababu has raked up the issue for personal gains.
Earlier, YSRCP leader and former minister Ambati Rambabu alleged that Chandrababu Naidu is trying to cover up his lies on the Tirupati laddu issue by spreading falsehood and making arrests with ulterior motives.
The SIT on February 9 arrested four persons from organisations which supplied ghee to TTD.
Bipin Jain and Pomil Jain, former directors of Bhole Baba Dairy (Roorkee, Uttarakhand), Vaishnavi Dairy (Poonambakkam) CEO Apoorva Vinay Kant Chawda, and AR Dairy (Dundigal) MD Raju Rajasekharan were arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
Chief Minister Naidu had claimed on September 18, 2024, that ghee used for making Tirupati laddu during the YSR Congress Party rule was adulterated with animal fat. This has triggered outrage among devotees of the famous temple.
The state government had constituted a SIT to probe the allegations. Later, the Supreme Court replaced it with a SIT involving both central and state officials.
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