YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, who has been caring a damn for the objections raised by the Centre on review of power purchase agreements and Polavaram re-tenders issue, appears to have taken the Tirumala RTC bus tickets issue very seriously.
One of the first reviews Jagan had done after returning from the United States on Saturday was on the controversy over the printing of information related to Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem on the rear side of the RTC bus tickets issued to Tirumala pilgrims.
Though endowments minister Vellampalli Srinivas and others tried to explain that the tenders for printing of ad material on the tickets were finalized during the Telugu Desam Party regime, Jagan was not convinced.
He pulled up the RTC authorities for not withdrawing the TDP advertisements immediately after YSRC came to power.
Such was the seriousness Jagan had on the issue was that chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam was rushed to Tirupati to made personal inquiry into the incident.
On Sunday, the chief secretary held a meeting with the TTD authorities to discuss, among other things, the controversy over tickets.
He said it was wrong on the part of the RTC to allow campaign of other religions on the bus tickets in Tirumala.
“It is a clear case of negligence by the RTC authorities. We shall take action against the officials involved in it,” Subrahmanyam said.
While asking the RTC managing director to submit a report in this regard, the chief secretary said a coordination committee would be appointed to prevent propagation of other religions in Tirumala.
He also warned the officials of endowments department against conversion into other religions.
Apparently, Jagan has realized that the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to gain political mileage out of his Christian faith and project him as anti-Hindu.
So, he does not want to give any scope for such criticism by taking swift action on such issues.