Tirupati Laddoo Controversy: Former Chief Priest Who Called Jagan Reddy Incarnation Of Vishnu, Now Accepts Poor Quality Ghee Was Used

The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) has been on the defensive since the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) made public a lab report confirming the presence of animal fat in Tirupati laddoos when Jagan Mohan Reddy was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Even former chief priest of Tirumala temple Ramana Deekshitulu has accepted that the cow ghee used for making prasad had a lot of impurities and was of poor quality and that he noticed this many years ago.

"I put it before the concerned authorities and the chairman of the trust board. But they did not care. It is a lonely battle for me but now, the new government has taken power and has promised to clear all the mess," he added.

Notably, since the TDP came back to power earlier this year and Chandrababu Naidu became the state's CM again, he has been exploring and investigating various alleged scams done by the Reddy-led YSRCP government.

"They have already bought pure cow ghee from government dairies and they are now preparing food material with pure ghee. Care should be taken that such great sins are not repeated in the temple, which is holy for crores of devotees," Deekshitulu added.

Interestingly, the same Deekshitulu had called then CM Reddy an 'incarnation of Lord Vishnu' three years ago. This was heavily criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its then-state president Somu Veerraju.

Former BJP national secretary and then Andhra Pradesh co-incharge Sunil Deodhar had accused Dikshitulu of insulting the Goda and his crores of devotees by calling 'an on-bail CM an incarnation of Vishnu.'

"With your boot-licking of an anti-Hindu family, you removed the sanctity of the pradhan archak's post in TTD," Deodhar alleged. Former Rajya Sabha MP of BJP, G V L Narasimha Rao called these statements 'sacrilegious.'

However, Dikshitulu was sacked by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) board for causing "irreparable damage" by leveling allegations against TTD as his video criticising Reddy and the Ahobilam seer went viral on social media.