Tirumala: All Eyes On Jagan’s Signature?

YSR Congress party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy appears to be in damage control mode after the recent controversy surrounding the adulteration of Tirupati Laddu prasadam pushed him into a tight spot. He immediately addressed a press meet to avoid public repulsion for hurting the sentiments of Hindus, but appeared clueless as he was unable to defend the allegations made by Chandrababu Naidu.

As the matter snowballed into a national issue and triggered widespread outrage on YSRCP, Jagan made a swift decision yesterday to visit Tirupati on Saturday to offers prayers as a sign of protest over the allegations. Jagan seems to be in a hurry to prove that he respects Hindu gods, especially Tirumala Hills, and immediately announced that he would go to the temple and seek blessings this week. Interestingly, Pawan Kalyan already announced that he is going to visit Tirupati after 11 days Deeksha.

Now, an interesting discussion is going on not just in political and media circles but all over the country on whether Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is known to be a converted Christian, will sign the petition before taking the darshan of Lord Venkateswara Swamy. This is now the talking point all over because Jagan didn’t sign on the petition when he visited Tirumala Hills in the capacity of Chief Minister. There have been many objections on this issue.

Even Chandrababu Naidu also raised this point in his recent press meet. He said that dignitaries like Sonia Gandhi and Abdul Kalam, who are not Hindus, signed the petition to express their faith in the god before going into the temple, but Jagan flouted the tradition and rules with his power and skipped the mandatory task for all non-Hindus.

There are unconfirmed reports that Jagan did sign on the petition only once in his political career so far long ago. So, there is a huge debate on whether he will sign on the declaration this time or not. Already, the Bharatiya Janata party demanded Jagan to sign it before seeking the darshan of the god. The TTD board will no doubt insist Jagan on following the rules prescribed for visitors from other religions. He cannot ignore them this time.

As the entire nation is glued to this ongoing controversy, it would be interesting to see what is Jagan’s strategy on this. He knows that there will be massive resentment from all quarters if he objects to sign on the declaration this time. Has he decided to prove his opponents wrong and put an end to this discussion ? Or will he stir up another controversy by refusing to do so ? We have to wait for a couple of days to see how it unfolds .