Former head priest of Lord Venkateshwara temple on Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati district Dr A V Ramana Deekshitulu, who had once made wild allegations against Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the past, has now surrendered to the latter.
Deekshitulu took to X and made a request to Naidu-led NDA government in the state to liberate him from the cases filed against him by the previous YSR Congress party government and provide him an opportunity to serve Lord Venkateshwara on Tirumala.
“If you can do that, I shall be ever grateful and indebted to the government,” Deekshitulu said in his post on X.
He said it was great on the part of the chief minister to announced that it would withdraw the false cases filed against certain people by the previous government.
“Even I was a victim of the previous government’s vindictive attitude. The TTD administrative officers filed illegal cases against me under the pressure from the previous government, as a result of which I was forced to run after the courts for the last five years,” he said.
During the previous stint of Naidu as the chief minister between 2014 and 2019, Deekshitulu used to make pungent attack on the former.
He was the one who made wild allegations that Naidu and his family had looted hidden treasures from the kitchen of Tirumala temple and that a blue diamond was missing from the treasury of the Lord during the Naidu regime.
Soon after the TDP lost power in 2019, Ramana Deekshitulu was made honorary head priest and also advisor of the temple Agama trust. But for some strange reasons, he could not get along well with the previous TTD chairman Y V Subba Reddy and JEO Dharma Reddy.
Then, Ramana Deekshitulu started attacking the TTD board and Dharma Reddy over the alleged irregularities in the TTD. He even demanded that the TTD be liberated from political influence.
A few months ago, a video of Deekshitulu surfaced on social media, in which he allegedly made some nasty comments against Dharma Reddy and other TTD officials. Though he denied of making any such comments, the TTD authorities filed a case against him in Tirumala one-town police station.
The TTD also removed Deekshitulu from the honourary head priest post, alleging that he was denigrating the temple sanctity and insulting the TTD trust board and Jeeyar Swamys.
Deekshitulu approached the state high court against the cases filed against him and his unceremonious sacking. The issue is presently in the high court.
