The alleged comments made by Vaishnavaite seer Sri Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swamy denigrating tribal deities Sammakka-Saralamma have no doubt kicked up a storm among the tribal groups, but more than that, they are gaining political colour.
Inquiries revealed that the video clip showing Chinna Jeeyar Swamy making comments against Sammakka Saralamma jatara is nearly 10 years-old and nobody knows in what context he had made those comments.
But the surfacing of the video clips a couple of days ago led to the suspicion that it was deliberately leaked by some political groups.
The needle of suspicion is pointing to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi activists from whom it came into circulation in the social media.
Apparently, the TRS supporters are angry with Jeeyar Swamy for showing disrespect towards chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao during the inauguration of the Ramanujacharya statue by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Muchintal Ashram, where KCR’s name was removed from the plaque.
KCR stayed away from the inaugural event and also the concluding ceremony, indicating that he was not happy with Jeeyar Swamy.
There are reports that the chief minister is going ahead with the inauguration of Yadradri temple without the involvement of Jeeyar swamy.
Against this backdrop, the surfacing of the video on Jeeyar Swamy’s comments against Sammakka Saralamma jatara, which KCR gives a lot of importance, is being viewed as an indication to the rift between the TRS and Jeeyar Swamy.
Interestingly, there was also a talk that the Telugu Desam Party might be behind the leakage of the video against Jeeyar Swamy, as he had not invited TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu to the Ramanuja status inauguration.
Lending credence to this suspicion, pro-TDP television channels like ABN-Andhra Andhra Jyothy also conducted debates on Chinna Jeeyar Swamy’s controversial comments against Sammakka Saralamma.
In the debate conducted by ABN Andhra Jyothy, film producer Ashwini Dutt, a known TDP supporter, lashed out at Chinna Jeeyar Swamy for the comments and even called him as a “vedhava” (stupid fellow), besides making wild allegations.
At the same time, the TDP activists also widely circulated the video in the social media, making nasty comments against Chinna Jeeyar Swamy, leading to the talk that the TDP might also be giving political colour to the controversy.
In fact, Naidu had never been very associated with Chinna Jeeyar Swamy so strongly, as KCR and others do. There were hardly any instances of Naidu visiting Chinna Jeeyar Swamy ashram.
During his tenure as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh between 2014 and 2019, Naidu never had a darshan of Chinna Jeeyar Swamy, though the latter’s ashram at Seethanagaram was right on the banks of Krishna river closer to Naidu’s Vundavalli residence.
Naidu also had not invited Chinna Jeeyar Swamy to the foundation laying ceremony of Amaravati. The last time he had seen the Swamy was in December 2019 at Muchintal, six months after he had lost power to the YSRC.
Yet, his party workers are widely circulating the video of Jeeyar’s controversial comments.