Contrary to the conventions, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Trust Board chairman Putta Sudhakar Yadav and some other board members on Tuesday refused to resign from their posts, triggering a new controversy.
Apart from Yadav, many other TTD trust board members also declined to resign from their posts, following the defeat of the Telugu Desam Party in the just concluded assembly elections.
Only one member Challa Babu submitted his resignation to the Executive Officer A K Singhal.
“Ours is not a political appointment. We were appointed by the government not the party. If the new government decides to abolish the board, we shall give up our posts,” Yadav told media in Tirumala, after the TTD trust board meeting.
The refusal of Yadav to quit his post caused embarrassment to the officials in the wake of arrival of chief minister-designate and YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy to Tirumala later in the evening.
The meeting was convened to take some crucial decisions, including exoneration of the TTD in the controversial transfer of 1496 kgs of gold from Chennai to Tirupati on April 18.
The gold was seized by Tamil Nadu police while it was being transported from Punjab National Bank in Chennai to Tirupati allegedly without valid permits and security.
However, the board meeting could not take place, as executive officer Anil Kumar Singhal and JEO Srinivasa Raju, who attended the meeting walked out after a few minutes and no other official turned up at the meeting.
It is a convention that whenever a new government is formed, the political appointees made by the previous government resign from their posts as a matter of principle.
Even senior Tollywood director K Raghavendra Rao also resigned from the post of chairman of Sri Venkateswara Bhakti channel. Similarly, Tirupati Urban Development Authority Chairman Narasimha Yadav.
Tirupati Gangamma temple trust Chairmna RC MuniKrishan and members, Vijayawada Kanaka Durga temple trust board chairman Gouranga Babu also resigned their posts.