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Amid heated campaigning for the upcoming Assembly elections, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) said last week that Telangana will remain secular as long as he is alive. In recent years, KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party has positioned itself in opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Hindutva plank. KCR and his son, Minister KT Rama Rao, have spoken against the Narendra Modi-led BJP Union government over issues of communal violence and minority rights on many occasions.
In Telangana, two major recurring themes of contention between BJP and BRS are the commemoration of Hyderabad state’s annexation to India which the BJP is accused of communalising, and reservation for Muslims. In both cases, BRS has been trying to push back against BJP’s Hindutva narratives.
At the same time, KCR hasn’t exactly distanced himself from all religious activities. He overtly follows Hinduism, and in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had claimed that his was ‘real Hindutva’, calling what the BJP practises ‘political Hindutva’ that involved demeaning other religions.
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The KCR government’s affinity for Hinduism is apparent in its spending on Hindu temples. After the state bifurcation, most major temples including the Tirumala Venkateswara temple – the world's richest Hindu temple – went to Andhra Pradesh. KCR then drew the ambitious plan to revamp the 1,000-year-old Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple at Yadagirigutta at par with some of the richest Hindu temples in the country.
Yadagirigutta was renamed to Yadadri and the government set up the YadagiriguttaTemple Development Authority (YTDA) to execute the renovation works which were launched in October 2016. KCR announced the first donation to the temple – 1 kg 16 tolas gold – on behalf of his family.
In March 2022, nearly six years later, the temple was reopened with a 17-acre, three-storey structure including seven gopurams and several sculptures. A small temple that was earlier spread over just 2,500 square yards was expanded to cover over 2,000 acres. The expansion involved a huge land acquisition drive wherein many local residents lost their shops and houses.
The state government had spent Rs 1,200 crore on renovation, land acquisition, infrastructure development, and other works. Another Rs 600 crore was earmarked for more development works. This amount is way higher than the Rs 800 crore budget for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘dream project’ of revamping the Kashi Vishwanath temple complex in his home constituency of Varanasi.
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Well-known seer Chinna Jeeyar, who is considered KCR’s spiritual guru, was the agama advisor for the Yadadri temple. KCR’s largesse was reportedly extended to the seer too. The YTDA reportedly handed over 2.3 acres of prime land to the Jeeyar Integrated Vedic Academy (JIVA) for just Rs 16.5 lakh, when the market rate was Rs 50 lakh per acre.
KCR and Chinna Jeeyar’s relationship is said to have soured after KCR’s name was left out of the plaque on the Ramaujacharya statue on the Chinna Jeeyar Trust premises at Muchintal, which was inauguirated by PM Modi. However, in August this year, the two of them attended the idol installation ceremony following the reconstruction of the Sita Ramachandra Swamy temple on a hillock in Valmidi village of Jangaon’s Palakurthi mandal. Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao recently said that a ‘spiritual corridor’ connecting Palakurthi, Bammera, and Valmidi was being developed at a cost of Rs 62.5 crore “with the blessings of CM KCR.”
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The BRS government’s temple development projects don’t stop at Yadadri. Earlier this year, KCR said his government was willing to spend Rs 1,000 crore to develop the Kondagattu Anjaneya Swamy Temple in Jagtial district, to make it the most popular Hanuman shrine in the country. An amount of Rs 500 crore has already been allocated for Kondagattu, which already attracts many pilgrims from neighbouring states as well.
After Yadadri, Kondagattu would be promoted as a spiritual destination, KCR said. The temple is being expanded in a space of about 750-800 acres and will also include a large hall that can accommodate up to 50,000 people. This temple too started out as a small structure spread across 0.4 acres of land, and the temple alone will be expanded to about four acres. The temple development in Yadadri and Kondagattu involve not just the shrine but also infrastructure for pilgrims like roads, food counters, water supply, accommodation, parking facilities, etc.
In what seems to be a contest of one-upmanship, BJP MP Bandi Sanjay too had earlier announced that the same temple would be developed with Union government funds.
Tollywood art director Anand Sai was roped in as the chief designer for both the Yadadri and Kondagattu temples. He is also working on the Sita Ramachandraswamy Temple in Bhadrachalam, for which KCR had announced Rs 100 crore development funds in 2016. While the Congress has questioned the delay in the project, the Union government meanwhile has approved development works of pilgrimage facilities at Bhadrachalam at a cost of over Rs 41 crore. On June 21 this year, which was marked as Telangana Spiritual Day amid celebrations of completing 10 years of state formation, the government again listed the Bhadrachalam temple works among its important religious projects.
The list also included the Vemulawada Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy Temple, for which KCR had announced a Rs 250 crore plan of which Rs 100 crore was sanctioned in 2015. In December 2021, Vemulawada MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh said that development works worth Rs 70 to 80 crore were taken up at the temple, including work related to a temple tank, bund, and bathing ghat.
In December 2022, Finance Minister and CM KCR’s nephew T Harish Rao, who also represents the Siddipet segment, announced a Rs 11 crore grant for the Komuravelli Mallikarjuna Swamy Temple in his constituency towards building queueing areas for devotees. He also noted that grants of Rs 50 crore and Rs 30 crore were sanctioned for the Dharmapuri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple and the Kaleshwaram Mukteswara Swamy Temple, stating that the development of temples and providing facilities for devotees was a priority for the BRS government.
In May this year, KCR highlighted his government’s commitment to preserving ‘Sanatana culture’ during the inauguration of the Brahmin Welfare Sadan Bhavan in Hyderabad. He raised the monthly honorarium under the Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam scheme, which supports the maintenance of temples, from Rs 6,500 to Rs 10,000. He also extended the scheme from 3,645 temples to an additional 2,796 temples in the state – a total of 6,441 temples.
He also increased the honorarium for Brahmin priests from Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000. Announcing a range of schemes for ‘poor Brahmins’, KCR emphasised that Telangana is the first state to establish a centre for Sanatana culture through the Brahmin Welfare Sadan. He described it as a guiding light for spiritual, dharmic, and Vedic activities.