The Vishva Hindu Parishad on Tuesday launched a campaign to wrest control of Hindu temples across the country from the government, alleging corruption in the management of religious places, reported The Indian Express.

The Hindutva organisation said that governments controlling temples reflected the mindset of “Muslim invaders” and “colonial” British.

“Governments are using temples to loot their wealth and to accommodate politicians who could not get a place in the government,” the organisation’s joint general secretary Surendra Jain told reporters.

The campaign comes amid a controversy about the alleged adulteration with animal fat of the ghee used to produce the prasadam, or holy offerings, at the Sri Venkateswara temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad is part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

As the first step in the campaign, the Hindutva organisation will hold protest rallies in all state capitals and submit a memorandum of demands to the chief ministers, Jain was quoted as saying. Subsequently, legal steps will be taken and “if this does not suffice, then we could even launch a movement in the future”, he said.

The announcement came a day after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held a conference of seers in Tirupati.

The alleged adulteration of the prasadam had made the “entire Hindu society angry”, Jain was quoted as saying. He claimed that forensic reports of adulteration were coming in from other temples too.

“The common link between all these episodes is that these are all temples under the control of governments,” he said. “The only stable solution to the problem is freeing the temples from the control of governments and them being handed over to the society.”

The public will manage the temples “under the guidance of saints”, he said.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad leader said that governments running temples was “unconstitutional”.

“Article 12 says the state has no religion,” he said. “Then, who has given them the right to run temples? Article 25 and 26 give us the right to run our institutions. If minorities can run their institutions, then why not Hindus.”

Jain said that “Muslim invaders destroyed temples and looted them” and the British “were smarter and took control” of the religious places. “This way they established an institutional system to loot the temples,” he said.

He added: “Unfortunately, despite Independence, our politicians could not free themselves of this colonial mindset. Governments taking control of temples is a reflection of the same mindset.”

Jain alleged corruption in the running of Hindu temples by the Tamil Nadu government, claiming that in the past decade, the state had “shown losses of Rs 50,000 crore” in these religious places.

He did not provide any evidence to back the claim.