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Andhra Latest News: Controversy over the laddoos served as ‘prasadam’ at Tirupati temple has turned into a political storm in Andhra Pradesh, which is elicitng responses from leaders cutting across party lines.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday charged that animal fat – ‘beef tallow’, ‘lard’, and ‘fish oil’ – was used as an ingredient in the laddoos at the Sri Venkateswara Temple, instead of ghee during the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
The YSRCP however dismissed the allegations by Naidu and challenged the state government to prove it till the lab test reports of ghee were released by the Telugu Desam Party’s social media accounts on Thursday.
Addressing the NDA legislature party meeting at Amaravati on Wednesday, September 18, Andhra CM Naidu said: “Even Tirumala laddu was prepared with low-grade ingredients… They used animal fat instead of ghee.”
He further said, “The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) led NDA government has also sanitised the process and increased the quality of the laddus.”.
Senior YSRCP leader Y V Subba Reddy, who himself has in the past served as chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams or TTD which runs the Sri Venkateswara Temple at Tirupati, averred, “Naidu will stoop to any level for political gains… His remarks are malicious.” Ghee of “top quality” is obtained from the milk of native cows of Rajasthan and Gujarat, Reddy said.
Another former chairman of TTD, Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, said that the officials who had purchased the ghee were working both under the previous Naidu government (2014-19) and Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP regime (2019-24). Never once was a question raised over the quality.
