Minister is main culprit in Durga temple fraud, alleges Buddha Venkanna

Mangalagiri: Telugu Desam Party MLC Buddha Venkanna on Wednesday slammed the government and the ACB officials for 'not taking' action against the real culprits involved in the massive corruption in the Durga Temple in Vijayawada city.

Venkanna deplored that the government has made the lower level employees of the temple scapegoats while the real accused were allowed to go scot-free. Endowments minister Velampalli Srinivas has committed such corruption that the temple has never witnessed before, he alleged.

Addressing the media conference at the party headquarters here, the TDP MLC demanded the minister to explain why an open counting was not being taken for the offerings and hundi collections made by the devotees at the temple. Velampalli was showing his gimmicks in all these things. The sarees that disappeared in the temple could be traced in the minister's house and his shops. Out of every Rs 1 crore given by the devotees, half of it was going into the hands of the minister.

Venkanna said that more corruption scandals would be revealed, if the ACB would carry out searches in all other temples in the State. If the minister was innocent, he should swear it on his children on the premises of Durga temple. The Sakshi media alone wrote dark stories of Velampalli's activities in Chennai. The Chief Minister should get all those aspects investigated in depth.

The TDP MLC said that the minister was visiting the Tirumala temple twice a month only to take devotees there along with him so that he would be able to collect huge amounts from them. Velampalli said in his election affidavit that his assets were worth Rs 10 crore but now that has increased to multiple times for which he owed an explanation to the public. Even in Dwaraka Tirumala, the minister was indulging in irregularities aplenty.Venkanna said that many more details regarding the ACB raids on the Durga Temple have not seen the light of the day. YSRCP was suppressing the actual fraud, he said.