Former Union minister and senior Telugu Desam Party leader Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday assumed charge as the chairman of Maharaja Alak Narayan Society of Arts and Science (MANSAS) Trust, following the recent high court orders, even as the Jagan Mohan Reddy government is still undecided over challenging the court order.
However, Ashok is not happy as he is facing a sort of defiance from the state government. Except the trust staff, there was absolutely no cooperation from the authorities of the endowments department.
When the senior TDP leader wondered why the MANSAS Trust office was being shifted from Vizianagaram to Visakhapatnam, there was no answer from the officials.
They did not even respond to his queries as to why no salary was being paid to the trust staff.
“I was surprised to know that no auditing of accounts of the trust was done in the last one year. It is the responsibility of the government to conduct the audit regularly. When I wanted to ask them, no official was available,” he regretted.
Ashok directed the authorities to auction the trust lands whose lease period expired.
He also asked them to submit the details of the trust activities and the auditing details before Monday. However, there was no response from the government.
A couple of days ago, too, when Ashok went to Simhachalam temple, he was not given proper reception by the authorities.
Though he is part of the temple trustee, the traditional headgear was not offered to him and the authorities told him that it was not being done due to Coronavirus pandemic.
“Even temple executive officer has refused to meet me. This is the kind of attitude of the officials, who are scared of the ruling YSRC,” Ashok said.