It was only on Friday that Vaishnavaite seer Chinna Jeeyar Swamy declared that he has no differences whatsoever with Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and that he would be hoping to see that the chief minister would be attending the Santhi Kalyana Mahotsavam at Muchintal ashram to be held on Saturday.
Everybody expected that KCR would be attending this Kalyanam, which was said to have been postponed by five days only for him to attend. So, on Saturday when the Kalyanam was to begin in the evening at 5 pm, everybody was waiting for the chief minister.
But the chief minister conspicuously abstained from the ritual, sending clear signals to Chinna Jeeyar Swamy and his devotees that he was not happy with the seer in conducting the Sri Ramanuja Sahasrabdhi festivities.
In fact, KCR abstained from Samakka Saralamma Jatara at Medaram in Mulugu district as well on Friday and there was a talk that he might visit Medaram on Saturday, the last day of the fair, but he gave it a miss again.
The chief minister boycotted the most important ceremony of dedicating the 216-ft statue of Ramanujacharya at Muchintal on February 5, just because he had strong differences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inaugurated the Statue of Equality.
The reason was that KCR’s name was removed from the plaque unveiled by Modi. This apparently angered the chief minister.
Though Jeeyar swamy clarified that the names on the plaque were mentioned only as per the instructions from the PMO, the chief minister was unhappy and he skipped the event.
He did not even come to the ashram on February 11 along with President of India Ramnath Kovind, though he received the latter at the airport.
What is more interesting is that Namasthe Telangana Telugu daily and Telangana Today English daily promoted by KCR have not given any coverage to the 10-day long programmes at the ashram after the visit of Modi.
It remains to be seen how long KCR would avoid Chinna Jeeyar Swamy.