The Andhra Pradesh government appointed the Board of Trustees of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), the body which administers Tirupati's Lord Venkateswara temple, for a period of one year, according to a Government Order (GO) issued here today.
Former Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA from Tirupati Chadalavada Krishnamurthy has been appointed as its chairman, the order said.
Members of the Board are Kolla Lalitha Kumari, Pilli Ananta Lakshmi, Dola Sreebala Veeranjaneya Swamy, Putta Sudhakar Yadav, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, G Sayanna, A V Ramana, V Krishna Murthy, J Sekhar, D P Anantha, Suchita Ella, K Raghavendra Rao, Sampath Ravi Narayanan and P Hariprasad, the order said.
Principal Secretary of the Revenue (Endowments) Department, Commissioner of Endowments Department and Executive Officer of TTD would also be ex-officio members of the Board, the order said.
Chairman of the Board Chadalavada Krishnamurthy is a former TDP MLA from Tirupati, while several board members, including Kolla Lalitha Kumari, Pilli Ananta Lakshmi from Andhra Pradesh and Sandra Venkata Veeraiah as well as G Sayanna from Telangana happen to be members of the ruling TDP.
Among others, K Raghavendra Rao is a veteran Telugu movie director who made several devotional films.
Constitution of the temple board was pending since the TDP was elected to power in Andhra Pradesh after last year's Assembly elections.
There has been intense speculation about the matter due to the high profile nature of the temple.
