Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the irregularities in the Tirupati temple body amid allegations of animal fat being used to adulterate the ghee for the temple laddoos.

Earlier, the ruling Telugu Desam Party had alleged that the former Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Trust, Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, and former executive officer AV Dharma Reddy had committed several irregularities in temple management over the last five years.

The party had said they will be held accountable.

The Chief Minister had said he would “clean up” the system, alleging that the irregularities had crept in during the rule of the erstwhile YSRCP government. “Many not-so-sacred things were done at Tirumala” over the last five years, he had said.  

He had also accused his predecessor at the top post, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, of appointing people close to him as TTD board members and using it for political gains.

Last week, the Chief Minister had red-flagged a report from a state-run lab in Gujarat, which said samples of the ghee from Tirupati tested positive for fish oil, beef tallow, and lard during the rule of the erstwhile government of YS Jaganmohan Reddy.

The report was dated July 17 – Mr Reddy’s YSR Congress has pointed to, questioning the delay.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been elected as Sri Lanka’s new president, becoming the first Marxist leader in the country’s history. His win is seen as a referendum on economic reforms during a severe crisis. Dissanayake aims to balance relations with India and China while addressing inflation and poverty. Dissanayake is the leader of the historically anti-India Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).