Warangal: The Medaram Sammakka-Saralamma temple will be shut for two days on May 29 and 30 to protest against the endowment department’s alleged attempt to transfer the temple’s building in Hanamkonda to Warangal’s Sri Bhadrakali Devi temple.
Speaking at a meeting at the temple premises, temple priests said the government had allotted 1,000 square yards of land in 1993 in front of the erstwhile central jail in the heart of Hanamkonda to build the office for the future needs of Asia’s biggest tribal fair, the Medaram jatara,
A few years back, the officials of the endowment department collected Rs 2 crore from the Medaram temple, the Sri Bhadrakali Devi temple and the Mettugutta Sri Ramalingeswara Swamy temple and constructed a building to set up the office for the Medaram temple.
Though the building was allotted for Medaram temple, the endowments department established offices belonging to all prominent temples in the erstwhile Warangal district along with the office for Medaram temple in the same building.
According to Medaram priests, the priests of Sri Bhadrakali Devi temple were now exerting pressure on the ministers, MLAs and officials to give them exclusive rights over the building to set up a Vedic school.
According to the Medaram priests, several appeals were made to Panchayat Raj minister Danasari ‘Seethakka’ Anasuya and Endowment Minister Konda Surekha, but no action was taken, forcing them to call for shutting down the temple for two days in protest. If the officials do not respond, the priests said, they would intensify their agitation in June.
