Tirupati: The residents and shopkeepers of Tirumala are getting ready to launch a peaceful agitation against the temple authorities and the ruling party to express their decades old resentment against the TTD over long pending issues.
The leaders of Tirumala Sthanikula Sankshema Sangham, formed by the locals and traders of Tirumala, on Tuesday announced that they would go for a complete shutdown of Tirumala and intensify their protest if TTD or the ruling party failed to give proper written assurances regarding resolution of their issues.
Speaking to the media, TSSS leader M. Muni Reddy alleged that the officials of TTD and leaders of the ruling party had neglected the locals and their issues were being tabled before the respective officers since decades, without any solution. “We have been waiting since decades for the TTD to resolve our issues. Many governments have come and gone and none of the leaders, except a few, did justice to the locals here,” he said.
He further added, “Even after many representations and requests, the authorities are still keeping quiet on this. Instead of resolving the issues, now they have started imposing fines to the tune of RS 25,000 to Rs 1,00,000 on the shopkeepers and are cancelling trade licenses, showing invalid reasons over violation of TTD rules, which has driven us to go for a peaceful protest.”
“We are getting ready for the protest from Wednesday onwards, if we don’t get any written assurances from the officials even after 48 hours. We will shutdown all our shops and hotels at Tirumala,” he said.
