Since Thursday morning when news that YV Subba Reddy will be appointed as the Chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams broke from Amaravati, several right-wingers have felt horrified. Their outrage stems from the fake news propagated by some media outlets that Subba Reddy is a converted Christian. It is a case of assuming that since Subba Reddy is chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s uncle, he too must be a practising Christian.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Subba Reddy is married to Swarna, who is Jagan’s mother Vijayamma’s sister. Both Swarna and Subba Reddy are devout Hindus. 

“In fact, Swarna who is a post-graduate in Chemistry has also done a diploma course in astrology and she is the one who decides on the muhurthams for family functions. Subba Reddy is not a Christian by any stretch of imagination. I remember for her son’s marriage, Swarna went to so many temples to place the wedding invitation card before different deities,” says Sunita Reddy, Jaganmohan Reddy’s cousin.

Like YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s family, Vijayamma and Swarna’s family also hailed from Pulivendula in Kadapa district. Their father was in the transport business. Sunita Reddy says the family was so orthodox and religious that they had a priest came to conduct pujas in the temple they had inside their home, everyday.

YV Subba Reddy hails from Prakasam district and had no connection with the YSR family till he was married to Swarna. Vijayamma and Swarna’s two brothers are also known be devout Hindus. One of them is Ravindranath Reddy, the MLA from Kamalapuram. Among her side of the family, only Vijayamma practises Christianity, which she started after her marriage to YSR. 

Interestingly, Subba Reddy’s mobile ringer tone is the Bhaja Govindam tune. During an earlier media interaction, former Congress MP and YSR loyalist, Arun Kumar had described Subba Reddy as a person who would spend 20 out of 24 hours in a day engrossed in studying astrology. 

“If you go to his home, you would find four cows there and they do pujas to the cows,” Arun Kumar had said. 

Subba Reddy who was MP from Ongole in the previous Lok Sabha did not contest the elections this time. The general secretary of the YSR Congress, he handled some of the backroom operations. He was the person the Congress party reached out to in order to enlist Jagan’s support in case there was a hung verdict in the Lok Sabha elections. 

Sources in the YSRCP say the post of the TTD Chairman has been offered to Subba Reddy because of his temperament. It would also help Jagan to have a trusted relative handling the affairs at the wealthiest Hindu temple in the world.