Tirupati Laddu row: TDP ‘stands by’ Chandrababu Naidu’s statement after Supreme Court raps Andhra CM | Latest News India

While hearing a petition on the Tirupati Laddu dispute, the Supreme Court questioned why Naidu went public with the allegations about animal fat in the ghee used to make the ‘prasadam’ while his government was still in power waiting for the investigation report.

Justice KV Viswanathan asked: “You will get the report in July. September 18th, you go public. You say you ordered an investigation. The report makes it clear that this is not the ghee used. If you’re not sure, how did you get this out to the public?”

However, Naidu’s TDP party stood firm and backed up the Prime Minister’s comments by saying that the government stood by the allegations.

“We stand by everything we said before. Adulterated ghee was used to prepare Tirupati Laddus. We welcome today’s Supreme Court decision asking the Center whether a central inquiry is required. AR Dairy Food Private Limited supplied eight tankers of ghee to TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams),” said TDP national spokesperson K Pattabhi Ram, quoted by The Indian Express.

The TDP leader added, “When there were complaints from pilgrims about the smell and quality of laddus, samples from the remaining four tankers were sent for testing and the reports are available for everyone to see ₹319 per kg, it cannot be that the quality of ghee in the first four tankers was pure and the remaining four tankers were adulterated. NDDB has stood by its report on the ghee samples we sent. The government of Andhra Pradesh will submit all reports to the monitoring committee.”

The Supreme Court government said on Monday that it would soon decide whether the matter should be probed by the state-appointed SIT or investigated by an independent agency. The matter was posted for hearing on October 5.