Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand, on Saturday said that about three tonnes of laddoos were brought from the Tirupati temple for the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

The Shankaracharya also called on the sadhus of Ayodhya to take over the management of the Ram temple and run it in their traditional way instead of allowing the government to look after it.

“About three tonnes of laddoo was brought from Tirupati Balaji temple for the Pran Pratistha in Ayodhya. A large number of people received it. Since the Hindus distribute prasad to other people also, thousands of them must have consumed that laddoo and lost their religious sanctity because it contained animal fat. The purity of the Hindu devotees was destroyed by the temple management,” the seer told reporters in Ayodhya on Saturday.

Tirupati laddoos recently triggered a controversy because of the alleged presence of beef and pig fat in it. News agency PTI quoted the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), which manages the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala, as saying the shrine had “immediately stopped” receiving the “adulterated” ghee and would take legal action against the contractor who supplied it.

“It was our tradition that the temples were managed by the sadhus but the governments have gradually captured our important shrines and started using them to make a profitable venture. The government keeps the donations given by the devotees and nobody knows what they do with the money. It is high time the sadhus of Ayodhya in particular and the sadhus of the country in general should take over the temples and manage themselves because they can understand and follow the purity of a religious site,” said Avimukteshwaranand, who had opposed the consecration of the Ram temple while claiming that it was inauspicious to inaugurate an under-construction shrine.

Swami Sadanand Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Shardapeeth, Dwarka, Gujarat, and Swami Nishchalanand Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Gowardhan Puri Peeth, Odisha, had supported Avimukteshwaranand and stayed away from the temple inauguration programme. They had also alleged that the government had politicised the event for electoral gain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the Ram temple.