While Director K Raghavendra Rao is on a hectic schedule to complete his devotional film ‘Om Namo Venkatesaya’ with Akkineni Nagarjuna in lead role, few people are objecting to the very title of the film and are demanding for a change.

Nagarjuna is playing the role of Hathiram Baba, a saint from North India, who became of a devotee of Lord Venkateswara after a pilgrimage to Tirumala 1500AD. This section of people is blaming that the title does lot of injustice to the saint.

Recollecting earlier films of Raghavendra Rao which had titles referring to the devotees like Annamaiah, Bhaktha Ramadasu and Shirdi Sai, they are pleading that this film also should be named after the devotee.

Stating that the saint hails from Banjara community, Banjara Seva Sangham activists, in West Godavari district are suspecting that the director chose god’s name as the title, fearing that people may not watch the film if the title is named after the tribal saint. In their social media campaign, they accused that the director is discriminating the tribal saint. Few TV channels also telecasted stories referring to their objections.

Before establishing Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) in 1932, the Tirumala temple was managed by a trust named after the Saint `Hathiram Mutt’ for about a centenary, beginning from 1843. Thousands of crores of rupees worth assets remain at several places like Mumbai, Chennai and Tirupati, which are allegedly mismanaged.

Originally devotee of Lord Rama, Hathiram was said to be born in Ayodhya in a middle class family. But after a pilgrimage to Tirumala, he decided to stay there and setup an Ashram outside the temple and named it Hathiram Bhavaji Mutt.