A text message is doing the rounds on social media with the claim that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is mortgaging the gold of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanmas (TTD) to avail a loan for the state.
Facto News verified that the claim is baseless and misleading.
Rahul Anand, a Twitter user made the claim in a tweet and called it robbery by the Christian CM of the state. The caption along with the post reads: “BREAKING NEWS: #Andhra #Pradesh #CM to mortgage 1500 kg of Tirupati temple gold to avail a loan of Rs.25,000 crores! For what purpose? This is daylight robbery by a X’tian Chief Minister !”
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
Another Twitter user by the name Dath made the same claim. The caption along with the post reads: “Am told that Andhra Pradesh CM proposed to mortgage 1500 kg of Tirupati temple gold to avail a loan of Rs.25,000 crores! Is it True For what purpose?”
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
Multiple users have made the same claim. An archived version of the posts can be found here, here, and here.
The claim is viral on Facebook also.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
Facto Check:
We searched for the news report regarding the claim and found no such report. However, we did find a fact-check article by the Andhra Pradesh government. The article has specifically mentioned Rahul Anand’s tweet and called the claim “false information”. According to the information provided by Anand in his Twitter bio, he is associated with the BJP party.
The article has the statement of TTD Executive Officer Shri Jawahar Reddy. The officer has denied any such claim made in the Tweet and also called the information fake. The TTD officials according to the article has decided to take legal action against those spreading fake news.
A quoted statement in the article reads: “It has become a habit for such trolls, who call themselves content creators to post anything on Twitter or Facebook regarding the Holy shrine and get away with it. TTD will not tolerate this anymore and pursue the case legally.”
The fact-check of the state government also calls out Rahul Anand by saying: “The same user, who posted the tweet, recognizes himself as a follower of a certain political ideology. But does the ideology, give him the freedom to post anything that might hurt the sentiments of an entire community and cause harm to the reputation of a holy Hindu shrine?”
The fact-check Twitter handle of the state government has also called the fake news in a Tweet and along with Rahul Anand has tagged the other users who have made the same claim.
Tweet screenshots from all the below handles with the same tweet has also been forwarded to TTD.@VKannan1957 @Chaukidarsanjee @Santosh16929214 @TapanBhuyan407 @Dath61413603
— FactCheck.AP.Gov.in (@FactCheckAPGov) August 4, 2021
Therefore, the claim made by Rahul Anand and others is baseless and misleading.