There is always a bad talk about Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) that it prefers VIP costumers over the ordinary people. Successive governments had promised that their policies would be pro-common man but time and again they failed to do so with action. The new governing body appointed by the YSRCP government did the same and invited flak from the public.
The 24 member new panel took oath and the devotees are expressing anger over appointing the rich corporate tycoons, political leaders and media bosses. Interestingly the new panel has more number of members from neighbouring states like Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and New Delhi. Jupally Rameshwara Rao from Telangana needs no introduction. He owns My Home Groups and recently acquired TV9 news channel. Parthasarathy Reddy is the other member who owns Hetero pharmaceuticals and Damodar is one of the founders of ‘Namaste Telangana’ newspaper which is a mouth-piece of the ruling party in Telangana.
From Tamil Nadu is N Srinivasan. The former BCCI boss owns India cements, IPL team Chennai Super Kings and others. He was appointed for having close association with AP CM YS Jagan. Sudha Narayanamurthy who hails from Karnataka, is wife of Infosys founder Narayanamurthy. Perhaps Sudha is the only TTD member who is into many social works. She owns orphanages and took part in many rural development initiatives.
The other members like Ramesh Reddy, Narayana, Sivashankaran, Rajesh Sharma are big men into multiple businesses. From Andhra Pradesh, three members are MLAs while one lady is wife of YSRCP MP. Siva Kumar, Chippagiri Prasad Kumar, Nadella Subba Rao and Ananth are highly influential persons in politics and are big shots. The remaining members too are no less when compared to the above members.
So from where these biggies serve the common people is a million dollar question is what the devotees say. We can’t comment anything now as the new panel just took oath and we have to see what kind of improvements they will do for TTD and common devotees.