Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday headed to the Veerabhadra Swamy temple at Koravi, in Mahbubabad district, and made an offering of a gold ‘moustache’.

This came just two days after his visit to the Tirumala temple, where he made a bigger offering of gold ornaments worth Rs55.9 million (Dh3 million) at the Sri Venkateshwara Rao and Padmavati temples.

These and many other similar offerings at various temples in the past, all paid by the state exchequer, were part of his thanksgiving upon the realisation of his wish of a separate Telangana state.

Earlier in October 2016 he had gifted a 12kg gold crown worth Rs35 million to Bhadrakali temple in Warangal.

The 20-gram gold moustache offered on Friday, cost around Rs70,000, but much more money was spent on his travel and security in the tribal area.

KCR’s largesse towards Tirumala has earned laurels from the priests and officials of the temple board TTD who said that no other government in the past had made such a big offering to the temple. But this has evoked a sharp reaction from the opposition parties, and an activist has gone to the court seeking recovery of the money from the Chief Minister which he spent on the offerings.

Lubna Sarwath, Hyderabad-based activist, filed a petition in the Hyderabad High Court questioning the right of the Chief Minister to use the public exchequer for making an offering to a temple to fulfil his personal vow. Terming it illegal, she wanted the Chief Minister to pay from his personal pocket. She urged the court to not only recover the cost of these offering from the Chief Minister, but also demanded to know how much money was spent from the exchequer on the visit of the Chief Minister along with his extended family to Tirupati earlier this week.

KCR, his wife, children, grandchildren and other family members including six sisters, had taken two special aircraft to visit Tirumala. The activist also demanded that the court should recover the cost of the travel and accommodation from respective members of the entourage which included several ministers and officials. In all 43 people had travelled with the KCR for the thanksgiving visit.

The state government had used the Common Good Fund of the Endowments Department for making the offering of the gold ornaments to various temples.

The leaders of opposition parties who had initially kept mum over the issue appear to have worked up courage to question the legality of KCR’s generosity from the petition in the court.

Senior Congress leader and former minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy said that KCR’s offerings to Tirumala and other temples by using Common Good Fund was a violation of the Endowment Acts. “The money from this fund can be used only for the renovation of temples and providing facilities there,” he said, adding that he too was planning to go to the court on the issue.

Another senior Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao criticised KCR for ‘taking away from the poor and offering it to God’. “Even God won’t accept such offerings,” he quipped.

However, the chief minister rejected the criticism, saying he was happy to make the presentation to Veerabhadra Swamy on the occasion of Shivaraatri.

Talking to the media at Koravi, KCR expressed anger over the opposition leaders criticism of the offerings. He also announced sanctioning Rs50 million for the development of the temple at Koravi. He accused the opposition Congress party of obstructing the development of the state.