GO on temple board: Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy gains upper hand over Bhatti Vikramarka

The Revenue Minister gets government order appointing his follower as Peddammagudi chairman

Kothagudem: The rivalry between Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has scaled to new heights with the latter reportedly managing to get a government order, issued constituting a temple board of trustees, cancelled to make way for his followers.

Earlier, on March 6, the Revenue (Endowment-II) Department had issued GO RT No: 66 appointing Congress leader Jammula Rajashekar, a follower of the Deputy Chief Minister, and 13 others as the Board of Trustees for Sri Kanaka Durga Ammavari Devasthanam (Peddammagudi) located at KP Jagannathapuram near Paloncha in the district. But the GO was put on hold for a fortnight, preventing the newly appointed Board from taking oath of the office as the Revenue Minister wanted his follower to be the chairman of the temple.

Subsequently, on Wednesday, Endowment Principal Secretary Shailaja Ramaiyer issued GO RT No: 112 cancelling GO RT No: 66 and reconstituting the Board of Trustees.

In the latest GO, the name of Jammula Rajashekar was replaced by Balineni Nageswara Rao, whose name was proposed for the temple chairman post by Minister Srinivas Reddy’s follower and Khammam MP R Raghuram Reddy, as well as by Kothagudem MLA K Sambasiva Rao.

In GO RT No: 112, the names of seven persons who were in the list of Board of Trustees as mentioned in GO RT No: 66, have been retained.

This development has upset the Deputy Chief Minister as well as his followers besides Endowment Minister Konda Surekha, Telangana Forest Development Corporation chairman Podem Veeraiah and the district in-charge minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, who officially endorsed Rajashekar for the Peddammagudi temple chairman post.

It might be noted that Bhatti Vikramarka and Venkat Reddy in separate letters to Surekha had asked her to consider the name of Rajashekar for the temple chairman post after Veeraiah recommended his name. But their recommendations were snubbed much to their chagrin.

Interestingly, Surekha is unable to get her recommendation honoured in her own department as the GO TR No 66 was cancelled. She, in a letter to the Endowment Commissioner on January 25, had asked to consider the recommendations of Venkat Reddy and Veeraiah and issue orders appointing Rajashekar as the temple chairman.