Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) honorary head priest Dr A V Ramana Deekshitulu, known for perennial disgruntlement against the temple management, is back in the news with his tweet expressing disappointment with YSR Congress party president Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Deekshitulu, who was reappointed as head priest of Lord Venkateshwara Swamy temple in Tirumala in April 2021, posted a tweet alleging that anti-Brahmin forces in TTD are demolishing the archaka and temple systems on Tirumala.
“@ysjagan. All archakas desperately waited for ur announcement on implementation of one-man committee report. Badly disappointed. Necessary to do it before archaka and temple systems are demolished by anti-brahmin forces in TTD,” he tweeted.
However, within a couple of hours, Deekshitulu deleted the tweet from his Twitter handle, for reasons known only to him. Apparently, the tweet has angered the chief minister and his advisors immediately brought pressure on Deekshitulu to remove the tweet.
But by that time, the damage has been done, as Deekshitulu’s detractors took a screen shot of his tweet and circulated widely on the social media.
Some of the archakas of Tirumala also found fault with Deekshitulu for making such a nasty comment against the chief minister and the TTD.
A few months ago, too, Deekshitulu made a similar tweet, tagging Jagan, expressing his dissatisfaction over the ill-treatment meted out to him from the TTD administration. He alleged that the TTD administration was preventing him from doing puja to God.
“We are driven to courts. Pl step in to set issues and put the TTD administration in proper place,” Deekshitulu told the chief minister.
Apparently, Deekshitulu wants to bring to the notice of Jagan that despite getting the orders for his reinstatement as the chief priest, he was not being allowed to perform pujas and other regular sevas in the temple. So, he wants the chief minister to intervene and get the issue sorted out.
It may be mentioned that in May 2018, the then newly formed TTD trust board unanimously resolved to ask all Archakas who had crossed 65 years of age retire from the temple services. Deekshitulu was also forced to retire, within a day of he making serious allegations of corruption in the temple administration.
On April 2, 2021, the TTD issued orders, following the instructions from the state endowments department, stating that all those who were forced to retire in May 2018 (during the previous regime of Telugu Desam Party) would be taken back into the temple.
But Deekshitulu’s appointment caught into a legal wrangle, with another chief priest of the Tirumala temple Venugopala Deekshitulu filing a petition in the state high court challenging the former’s appointment.
The court appointed a one-man commission to look into the issue and the commission submitted its report a few months ago. Till now, no action has been taken in this regard.