New TTD Chairman refutes proselytisation charge

VIJAYAWADA: Newly-appointed TTD Chairman Putta Sudhakar Yadav has refuted the charges of encouraging proselytisation levelled against him.Speaking to mediapersons in Vijayawada on Thursday, he said he is a Hindu and has spent more than Rs 11 crore on reviving several neglected and half-built temples in Kadapa district and elsewhere. “YSRC and BJP are carrying out a malicious campaign against me only out of jealousy,” he said.

According to him, he had participated in a bull race programme organised in a village in Kadapa district and that was wrongly reported in a section of the media that he was a Christian and encouraged religious conversions.  “I am 100 per cent Hindu.  If there is anyone who is unfit for the post, it is Karunakar Reddy of YSRC party, who is an atheist,’’ he said.

Sudhakar Yadav said as TTD Board member in the past, he was the one who prevailed upon the TTD administration to bear the entire cost of constructing ‘Bhajan Mandirams’ in Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe colonies.Thanking Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh for his appointment as chairman of TTD, the most prestigious post, which administers the famed hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara, Sudhakar said that it is a great boon bestowed upon  Backward Class community in general and Yadavas in particular.

“Never in the past did anyone think of giving the post to a member of the Yadava community. One should never forget the Sannidhi Golla tradition at Lord Venkateswara Temple atop the Tirumala. The Chief Minister has honoured the Yadava community by making a person belonging to it as the chairman of TTD,” he said.

Sudhakar said as TTD Chairman his top priority is to protect the sanctity of the temple and at the same time provide hassle-free darshan to common pilgrims.  When his attention was drawn to the fact that some people within his own party are saying that he was appointed to the post only because he is a relative of Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, he said there is no truth in their criticism.

“Sudhakar Yadav is a loyal TDP leader from Rayalaseema. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had decided to give the post to people belonging to Yadava community in Rayalaseema region and chose him. There should be no doubts about his qualifications for the post,” Beeda Ravichandra, TDP MLC said.
Meanwhile, Kothapalli Subbarayudu, who was appointed chairman of the Kapu Corporation, thanked the Chief Minister and party general secretary N Lokesh for his appointment. “I will do full justice to my post and live up to the faith the party has reposed in me,” he said.