All are equal before the God, but some are more equal if the treatment meted out by the TTD authorities to OMC illegal iron ore mining scam accused  former  BJP leader of Bellary Gali Jarnadhan Reddy is considered.

The TTD laid out a red carpet welcome for him during his last week's visit to Tirumala after his release from jail on bail after 3 years as an under trial at both Chanchalaguda and Bangalore jails. They booked 10 rooms,  gave him 150 laddu prasadams, garland and shawl - meltchat vastram, ashirwadam by pundits led by top priests under supervision of Dollar Sheshadri. On top of it, Gali Janardhan Reddy and family got a 45-minute special darshan with harati organized by Sheshadri.

TTD officials are not embarrassed with criticism and say: "Gali Janardhan Reddy is one of our major donors. He had given a  gold and diamond crown of Rs.55 crores and also donated heavily towards our various  cottage, pranadanam and  Annadanam schemes."  They say that  giving VIP darshan and laddus and booking rooms is a normal thing for any donor and a VVIP.  

It goes without saying that Lord Venkateswara looks down equally on both sinners and righteous people and doles out his blessings in equal share  to all who come to him for relief  and bequeath themselves in his service. But the moot question is should such political personalities with known criminal charges and dark backgrounds  be given royal treatment in institutions like Tirumala .

How could Gali and family get 45-minutes darshan while the common man could hardly get less than 3 seconds. Going by the statistics provided by the TTD  for last New year cum Vaikunta Ekadasi, nearly 1.02 lakh  people had darshan of Lord Venkateswara that day, when the temple was kept open from morning 2 am for about  21 hours. This means that a common man  had hardly 1.2 seconds darshan even after waiting for 20 hours!

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