Andhra CM to seek seer's blessings in Vizag

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will visit Visakhapatnam on Tuesday to seek the blessings of Hindu seer Swamy Swaroopanandendra Saraswati.

Jagan Reddy is also likely to request the Sharada Peetham pontiff to fix an auspicious time for the expansion of his Cabinet next week.

The Chief Minister will reach Visakhapatnam by a special aircraft from Vijayawada on Tuesday morning and will drive straight to Sharada Peetham to meet the seer.

According to sources in Chief Minister's Office, he will spend an hour at the ashram before returning to Amaravati.

This will be Jagan Reddy's first meeting with the seer after the results were declared. The spiritual guru reportedly congratulated him over the phone and is also understood to have set the mahuratam for his swearing-in as the chief minister.

Jagan, as the young leader is popularly known, took oath at 12.23 p.m. on May 30 at a public ceremony in Vijayawada.

The YSRCP chief had been following Swamy Swaroopanandendra for the last couple of years. Interestingly, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao also follows the seer and visited his ashram for blessings after winning Assembly election in December last year.

Though followers of Jagan say he is a devout Christian, the YSRCP President is known to frequent Hindu temples and seers.

In 2016, he went to Rishikesh to perform a 'homam' in the presence of Swamy Swaroopanandendra for special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

He also took the blessings of Chinna Jeeyar Swamy before embarking on his 3,600-km long state-wide 'padyatra' in 2017.

YSRCP leaders say Jagan is a firm believer in secularism and respects all faiths. A day before taking oath as the Chief Minister, he visited Tirumala temple at Tirupati and a dargah and a church in his native Kadapa district.

At the swearing-in ceremony, he took the blessings of Christian, Muslim and Hindu priests.

--IANS

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