Congress MP Urges Governor To Restore Nalgonda Temple

Congress leader and MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy today wrote a letter to Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, and urged her to take steps for the restoration of an ancient sun temple, located at Akaaram village, in Nalgonda district's Shaligouraram mandal.

In his letter, Reddy said that the temple, which he claimed was older than Andhra Pradesh's famous Arasavalli sun temple, now lay in disarray, and had become dilapidated due to neglect.

The MP stated that several groups of devotees had made demands, that restoration works be taken up in the temple, many times before as well, and appealed to the Governor to take cognisance of the the same and do the needful. Requesting her to initiate the process of releasing funds for the renovation works, he also urged her to take steps to improve the road network around the site.

Stating that it was the only sun temple in Telangana, the Congress leader highlighted the importance of renovating and restoring the historic structure. He added that the officials of the state's archaeology department and the district administration had sent a report to the union government on the status of the temple in October last year, but that the report had failed to elicit a response.

Reddy's letter comes just some days after he also published a tweet from his official Twitter handle on the matter. The post read, "An ancient sun temple is located at Akaaram Village, Shaligouraram Mandal, Nalgonda district. It was built in 11th century & presently it is in dilapidated condition. I urge Hon'ble @narendramodi @DrTamilisaiGuv & @TelanganaCMO to sanction budget for development of this temple (sic)."

While the demand made by the Congress MP may well be a perfectly sincere one, its timing is sure to raise some eyebrows. This is because the MLC elections in the graduate constituencies of Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda and Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabubnagar are to be held later this month.