T'gana officials told to remove images of politicos at temple

Facing flak over images of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his party symbol car and others being carved on some pillars of Yadadri temple complex, the state government on Saturday asked officials to remove all the images.

K Bhoopal Reddy, special secretary to the Chief Minister, instructed officials that except images of God and the temple, no other images should be allowed in the temple, an official press release said here.

The government has taken up massive renovation and development of the Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple complex at Yadadri, situated around 60 km from here.

Reddy expressed anger at the way images of some political leaders, party symbols were being carved, the release said.

Reddy, who had a meeting with Yadadri Temple Development Authority (YTDA) special officer Kishan Rao and architect Ananda Sai here on Saturday evening, asked them under whose instructions pictures of the Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao, Indira Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi and symbols of certain political parties were carved, it said.

The YTDA officials replied they have not given any instruction to carve the images of political leaders and party symbols and that a couple of sculptors did so on their own, it said.

"They explained that the Chief Minister himself never wanted his image to be carved in the temple vicinity," it said.

Bhoopal Reddy directed that all the images of political leaders and party symbols and "other such objectionable material should be taken off forthwith", it added.

BJP, Congress and other parties had earlier hit out at the TRS government for sculpting the images of Rao and some of his government's flagship schemes.

BJP MLA Raja Singh, who visited the temple on Saturday, demanded that such images be removed within a week.

"I am requesting the Chief Minister. If it is in your knowledge, it is very wrong. If it is not in your knowledge, you should take action on those who did these things," Singh told reporters.

State BJP president K Laxman led a protest on Saturday by his party workers on the issue.

Congress said in a press release that its leaders, including Nalgonda MP Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, MLAs D Sridhar Babu, T Jayaprakash Reddy and party's working president Kusum Kumar would visit Yadadri on Sunday.