Rayalaseema Porata Samithi convener P. Naveen Kumar Reddy, who led a batch of local politicians and also some devotees trekking to Tirumala, staged a dharna at Alipiri, here, seeking to know why the government could not exempt the TTD from GST.
As the GST would invariably mean higher price for the Lord's services making them less affordable for poor devotees, he questioned the stoic silence being maintained by the saints and seers on the one hand and the senior bureaucrats heading the TTD on the other.
Unprecedented
“Neither the British nor the Muslim rulers who ruled this region in the past slapped such taxes on the Tirumala shrine, but a supposedly Hindutva party in power is resorting to it,” Mr. Reddy said. The government should not merely look at the TTD as a religious establishment, but should take into cognizance the socially-relevant programmes being conducted on the health and educational fronts.
Expressing his solidarity with the cause, Rayalaseema Rashtra Samithi (RRS) convener Kunchem Venkatasubba Reddy also participated in the dharna.