Ayodhya’s Ram Temple chief priest Acharya Satyendra Das has said that laddoes from Trrupati temple were distributed as prasadam to devotees during the pran prathistha ceremony on January 22 earlier this year. The remark by the chief priest, which comes amid a row over animal fat allegedly being found in laddoos at the famed Andhra Pradesh temple, has triggered a demand for an investigation into the claims.
“I do not know how many laddoos were brought. The trust would know that. But, whatever laddoos came, the prasad was distributed among the devotees. The reports on contamination point to a dangerous conspiracy,” Acharya Satyendra Das told India Today.
Over one lakh laddus were dispatched by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the Sri Venkateswara temple, for the consecration ceremony. The ceremony was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was attended by 8,000 dignitaries.
However, the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the trust which manages the Ram temple, said only cardamom seeds were distributed as prasadam during the consecration ceremony of Ram Lalla.
Champat Rai, general secretary of the trust, said they were waiting for the Centre’s investigation report on the Tirupati laddoos. “We only distributed cardamom seeds to the devotees. I went to Tirupati once in my life in 1981, and it is not proper for me to comment on the controversy,” Rai said.
