On Wednesday, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu accused the previous YSR Congress government led by Jagan Mohan Reddy of using animal fat to prepare Tirupati laddus and damaging the sanctity of the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple.
The Telugu Desam Party claimed that a Gujarat lab detected beef tallow, lard, and fish oil in the ghee used to make Tirupati laddus. Reddy labelled Naidu’s allegations as “diversion politics” and averred that Naidu was “concocting” the adulteration story to divert attention from the poor performance of Naidu’s government in the first 100 days of its term.
Subsequently, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which manages the temple, backed CM Naidu’s claims of adulterated laddus and blacklisted the supplier who provided the temple “adulterated” ghee. The executive officer of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, J Shyamala Rao, said, “Now the reason for the lack of quality is not having an in-house lab, sending the samples to outside labs for testing and unviable rates.” He noted that the samples sent to the Gujarat lab indicated that the vegetable oil used is contaminated too.
As the political slugfest continued and the conflict intensified, Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Friday intervened and sought a comprehensive report from the Andhra Pradesh government regarding the matter and promised suitable action after examination.
