Drama over TTD chief appointment

Vijayawada/ Kadapa: Even as utter confusion and speculation over nomination of Chairman of the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) continue to reign, the prospective aspirants are in celebration mode.

As is Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s wont to keep people guessing, Putta Ravi Kumar Yadav, a TDP leader from Mydukuru Assembly segment in Kadapa district, shared his jubilation over his ‘appointment’ as the TTD chairman at a media conference in Hyderabad on Thursday.

He even thanked CM for his elevation as the posts of his media conference went viral in the social media platforms. Media reports, speculating over the government’s `decision’ to reconstitute the TTD new board with Ravi Kumar Yadav at the helm, abetted him to get into celebration mode.

Inquiries with the Chief Minister’s Office and even the TTD revealed that a decision in this regard was officially yet to come out. Coincidentally, it’s the second celebration of the sort in the recent past. TM Ravishankar, an industrialist from Madanapalli in Chittoor district, also went into overdrive expressing his jubilations over his so-called anointment as the TTD chief sometime back.

The government’s dodging over the naming of the successor of Chadalavada Krishnamurthy, who demitted the office three months ago, breed speculation, keeping a host of aspirants on tenterhooks.

Film actor and TDP MP Muralimohan and party Guntur MP Rayapati Sambhasiva Rao were among the aspirants. Meanwhile, the government is said to be toying with the name of Ravi Kumar Yadav in its reported bid to make way for the defection of Congress leader DL Ravindra Reddy from the same segment into the TDP.

Ravi Kumar Yadav, a close relative of Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu and Class-I contractor, unsuccessfully contested from the TDP in Mydukuru in the last general elections. Obviously, he will try to stall the entry of Ravindra Reddy without any assurance for alternative positions in the government.