When the entire Tamil community in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry is mourning the tragic death of the Manakula Vinayagar Temple elephant Lakshmi, Dravidian Stockists and a few DMK supporters masquerading as journalists have blamed the Hindu temples for the elephant’s death, thus peddling the propaganda of PETA.
Temple Elephant ‘Lakshmi’ of the Manakula Vinayagar Temple collapsed and passed away on 30 November 2022, when she was out for her morning walk. She was only 30 years old and was much loved by the people of Puducherry.
Lakshmi was walking in a lane along with her mahout when she fainted on the road. Veterinary doctors were rushed in to provide medical help but she passed away soon reportedly of cardiac arrest. Hearing the news of Lakshmi’s demise, residents of Puducherry flocked to see their darling and have been paying tearful tributes.
Earlier in 2020, during the COVID pandemic, Lakshmi was forcibly removed from her home in Manakula Vinayagar Temple due to the alleged involvement of Menaka Gandhi and was kept in a pathetic condition at Krishi Vigyan Kendra. It was alleged that PETA was behind the move to remove Lakshmi from the temple. Indu Makkal Katchi (IMK) mobilized a campaign to rescue Lakshmi from PETA. Congress’s Americai V. Narayanan, BJP Puducherry’s Ganesan, and other members from various Hindu organizations protested the move to remove Lakshmi from the temple.
However, in the first week of August 2020, PETA petitioned the Madras High Court to quash the order issued by Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy ordering temple elephant Lakshmi to return to her home in Manakula Vinayagar Temple. Though the case was dismissed and Lakshmi stayed in Manakula Vinayagar temple, PETA and other organizations found other ways to target elephants in Hindu temples.
It was alleged by the elephant activists that Maneka Gandhi exerted pressure on the Forest Department to keep the elephant confined not even allowing her to go for a walk, as a result of which Lakshmi had water retention in the body and suffered a heart attack.
Locals also raised concerns about Vanjulavalli, a forest official who allegedly had ties to PETA, saying, “PETA tried to take control of Lakshmi during the pandemic. Due to the protest of the Puducherry people, She(Lakhsmi) was brought back to the temple. However, after the appointment of Vanjulavalli IFS, she did not allow Lakshmi to the temple.”
They questioned why Lakshmi, which should have been under the control of HR&CE, ended up under the control of Forest Department official Vanjulavalli, who treated Lakshmi with private doctors (Sha and his team) affiliated with PETA and WildlifeSOS.
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Locals also alleged that the IFS Vanjulavalli has passed secret orders to not take Lakshmi for walking or to the temple and that she had used private doctors from Bangalore who gave her four injections per day, with 15 on the last day alone. They claimed that IFS Vanjulavalli was the sole cause of Lakshmi’s death, demanding an independent investigation into Vanjulavalli and urging the Puducherry government to conduct a postmortem by Mettupalayam doctors rather than the Bangalore doctors who treated Lakshmi.
PETA India, however, attempted to twist the reason for Lakshmi’s death, claiming that she was denied her liberty and happiness and forced to endure years of extreme and unbearable loneliness in the temple. PETA India said,” Over the yrs, PETA India advised that she be sent to a sanctuary to live unchained & in the company of other elephants. Short of that, PETA India also offered to help build a corral so that Lakshmi can roam unchained by the temple & enjoy other elephant company there.”
PETA attempted to downplay Lakshmi’s demise and blame it on Hindu temples, claiming,” The elephant had foot root disease. Elephants forced to live and work on concrete commonly suffer from this and other painful foot conditions. Approximately half of the captive elephant deaths are caused by such afflictions.”
In an exact reproduction of PETA’s statement, Dravidian Stockists and some DMK supporters posing as journalists have claimed that Lakshmi and other elephants died because they were brought from the wild to the temple.
Sai Lakshmikanth Bharathi, son of DMK Organization Secretary RS Bharathi, stated, “An elephant has a lifespan of 60-70 years. Lakshmi, the elephant from Puducherry’s Manakula Vinayagar temple, died today at the age of 32. Temple elephants have a shorter life span than wild elephants. No animal rights activists or environmentalists appear to be concerned about this.” He added that the mood of the elephants, which are supposed to be in the forest, is affected because they are tied up in temples, and that at least now, after the death of Lakshmi, elephant maintenance in temples should be banned by law.
Viduthalai Rajendran, general secretary of Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, a rabid anti-Hindu hate speech organization, stated, “The death of a Puducherry temple elephant due to a heart attack is a tragedy not only for devotees but for everyone. Isn’t it cruel to bring animals that live naturally in the forest into a temple, make it religious, and then cause them to die of a heart attack?”
Another Dravidian Stockist, disguised as journalist Devendran Palanisamy, accused Hindu temples of Lakshmi’s death, saying, “If an elephant lives and dies in the forest, it is called natural death. If it is removed from the forest, brought into the city, tamed, and dies before its average lifespan, it is called murder.”
Another Dravidian Stockist, who blamed Brahmins for Lakshmi’s death, stated, “Lakshmi died as a result of a section of people (Brahmins) bringing animals that should be free to roam in the forest and locking them up in the temple for profit and use as begging animals. Elephant culture in the temple should be abolished.”
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Not only Dravidian Stockists but also cadres of Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi and neo-Ambedkarite group were also seen supporting the stance of PETA that elephants should not be kept in Hindu temples. A Naam Tamilar sympathizer said,” Only if the dying elephant is a temple elephant and not a wild elephant, it becomes a talking point. How long are we going to torture the elephants, which are wild creatures who should live naturally with their herds in the forest, by keeping them in separate enclosures in temples?”
A member of a neo-Ambedkarite group stated, “An elephant with five senses that is meant to roam freely in the wild is killed by a man with six senses.”
It should be noted that all of these Dravidian Stockists and Naam Tamilar symapathizers who complain about elephant torture in temples remain silent about cow slaughter in slaughterhouses and camel slaughter during Islamic festivals. They have taken the same stance as PETA by claiming that elephants are tortured in temples and hence the tradition of having elephants in temples should be stopped.
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Delhi’s ‘Liquorgate’ Is Flowing Into Telangana
The latest from the Telugu states to fall from grace in the scandalous Delhi Liquor Policy case, is Telangana Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao’s (KCR) daughter K Kavitha.
Kavitha, a BRS (formerly TRS) party leader, member of Telangana Legislative Council and daughter of the state’s current Chief Minister, has been named in the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) probe, as one of the members of what the ED calls the ‘South Group’, in a reference to persons from South India, who are involved in the Delhi excise racket.
K. Kavitha’s name surfaced in the remand report filed by the ED on Wednesday, for custody and investigation of businessman, Amit Arora in connection with the Delhi liquor policy scam. According to the remand report, businessman Vijay Nair, who has already been arrested in the case, received kickbacks of ₹100 crores on behalf of AAP leaders from a group, called the ‘South Group’.
Manish Sisodia, a senior AAP leader, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister (holding the Excise portfolio, among others) and a close aide of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal had also been named in the ED’s report. The ED’s remand report alleges that AAP’s Delhi liquor policy, promoted unhealthy, illegal “cartel” formations through a secret “back door” entry for certain members and awarded them exorbitant wholesale (12%) and retail (185%) profit margins as well as other illegal incentives/opportunities, the profitable rewards of which, would eventually be funnelled back into the accounts of some AAP leaders, for personal and party benefit.
In other words, the ED in its investigations unearthed a “front” organization or a “shell” company controlled by the individuals of the “south group” with the involvement of certain individuals (Vijay Nair, Amrit Arora and others) that enabled huge profit margins for these individuals, who in turn would pass on a percentage of the profits to members of the AAP, for personal or party benefit. The ED has alleged a criminal conspiracy between the leaders of AAP and individuals cited in its investigation report. The investigation is an ongoing one, likely to reveal more complex twists to a sordid financial conspiracy, linking AAP’s Delhi government, its cleverly formulated Liquor policy and a group of individuals acting as a liaison to enable kickbacks for the AAP.
The ED report states “The 12 per cent margin to the wholesalers was devised to extract half of it, as a kickback to the AAP leaders. Vijay Nair, on behalf of leaders of AAP has received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crores from the ‘South Group’, controlled by Sarath Reddy, Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and K Kavitha. The same has been disclosed by the detained Amit Arora in his statements”.
All three individuals named in the ‘south group’ so far, are Telugu. News of Kavitha’s alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor scam, comes several days after the ED’s earlier reports had already indicated a full blown involvement of individuals from the Telugu states of Andhra and Telangana, including businessmen with reportedly close ties to prominent political leaders of the states / current ruling parties.
This is the first time that the Telangana leader K Kavitha’s name has figured in the investigation, although accusations of her direct or indirect involvement, were first made back in August, by BJP MP Parvesh Varma and former MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa.
In a swift, defensive action and clever legal ploy to deflect negative publicity for herself, her father and her political party, K Kavitha has filed a defamation case in Hyderabad against the BJP, predictably claiming political vendetta. A city civil court in Hyderabad, has issued an interim order based on her plea, directing BJP leaders not to make any defamatory statements against Kavitha, while the probe was still underway and investigations were still ongoing.
Kavitha spoke of political over-reach, claiming that the BJP was trying to tarnish the image and reputation of her father, the Telangana Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and his family by making baseless allegations, as he and his party have been fearless and vocal critics of the BJP’s policies. She also claimed that the BJP government at the centre, excercised “control” over all the investigative agencies in the nation and that cases have been filed against Opposition leaders indiscriminately. Kavitha reiterated that she would cooperate in the ED’s investigative efforts.
The Bharath Rashtra Samithi party (BRS, formally TRS- Telangana Rashtra Samithi) was until recently, a Telangana-based regional party, founded and headed by Kavitha’s father, K Chandrasekhar Rao. KCR had founded the party in 2001 with the aim of demanding a separate statehood for the Telangana region within the larger, unified Andhra Pradesh state. This goal was accomplished in 2014 under the aegis of the Congress-led UPA government, when the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh state was bifurcated into Andhra and Telangana. Since the 2014 creation of a new Telangana state, KCR’s party has dominated the state’s political scene and has been the ruling political party there, for two consecutive terms.
Kavitha and her brother, K T Rama Rao are leaders in her father’s party, holding important, high visibility leadership and legistative posts. With the BJP’s meteoric rise after the 2018 state elections and its rapid growth in Telangana , the incumbent BRS (formerly TRS) party appears to be insecure about its supremacy in the state and has begun to sound defensive about its own supposedly effective developmental and “secular” policies versus those of the BJP’s economic policies which it claims are, trumped up, inadequate and ineffective measures with a “communal” agenda. The party’s leadership began to feel threatened enough, to start considering National alliances and a possible “third front” as an alternative to both a BJP-led or a Congress-led alliance.
In line with its new ambitions, the regional TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) party recently applied for a pan-Indian presence with the Election Commission of India (ECI) and re-christened itself, BRS- Bharat Rasthra Samithi.
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