Trump temple in Telangana village back into focus

Hyderabad, Nov 7 : As Donald Trump was set to become President of the US for the second time, a temple built by a man in a Telangana village in 2019 came into focus once again, with villagers celebrating the leader's victory by garlanding his statue.

Relatives of Bussa Krishna, who had installed the statue at his house in Konne village in Jangaon district and was regularly worshipping him, and some other villagers cleaned the statue and garlanded it.

Krishna died of cardiac arrest in October 2020 at the age of 33.

He had turned his puja room into a temple for Donald Trump in 2018.

Like an ardent devotee, he had installed the photograph of Trump, then US President, in his room and worshipped it daily.

In 2019, he built a six-foot statue of Trump in front of his house and conducted regular pujas and bathed it with milk. He claimed to have spent Rs 2 lakh on installing the statue.

Krishna, who had earned the nickname Trump Krishna in his village, also pasted posters and stickers of Trump all over his house and had written graffiti praising Trump on the walls.

When Trump was tested positive for Covid-19, Krishna had released a one-minute video in which he was seen crying and praying for his speedy recovery. He had also prayed for his re-election in 2020.

Krishna, who was taking care of agriculture in his two-acre land in the village, had stated that he started worshipping Trump after he saw him in his dream and predicted India’s victory against Pakistan in the 2019 Cricket World Cup match. After India won the match, Krishna's faith strengthened in Trump.

On another occasion, he cited the killing of a techie from Telangana in the US which prompted him to build a temple for Trump.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed by a US Navy veteran in an alleged act of hate crime in 2017.

Krishna believed that he could make the US president and his people understand the greatness of Indians by displaying love and affection towards them and hence started worshipping Trump.