Bhadrachalam: Celestial wedding of Lord Rama without splendour

Bhadrachalam: Amid few people, the celestial wedding of Lord Rama with His Consort Sita was conducted here at Sri Sita Ramachandra Swamy temple on Wednesday.

Due to the second wave of coronavirus, the State government has decided to conduct the festival without devotee's participation. Accordingly, the temple authorities have conducted the programme in the temple premises at Beda mandapam.

Before conducting the celestial wedding in the early hours of Wednesday, special puja was performed at the main temple. At 10 am, the festival deities were taken from the main temple amid veda mantras onto a separate stage set up at Beda mandapam in the main temple premises.

After conducting Vishwaksena puja and other pujas, jeelakarra bellam offering was performed at 12 pm in Abhijit lagnam, followed by talambralu.

Minister for Endowments A Indrakaran Reddy offered silk clothes and mutyala talambralu to the festival deities on behalf of the State government. Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar also offered silk clothes to the deities during the programme.

Temple chief priests P Sitaramacharulu, A Vasudevan, Murali, Sriman, Sravan and others conducted the kalyanam. Veda pundit Murali Krishnamacharyulu and Sthala Sai conducted commentary of the entire programme.

Only 40 to 50 persons have attended the celestial wedding. Commissioner of Endowments Anil Kumar, Zilla Parishad Chairman K Kanakaiah, Bhadrachalam MLA Podem Veeraiah and Kothagudem Additional Collector K Venkateswarlu, Superintendent of Police Sunil Dutt and other officers attended the programme.

Later speaking to the media, Ministers Indrakaran Reddy and P Ajay Kumar said that they prayed Lord Rama to give good health, peace and prosperity to the people of the State. They also offered prayers seeking the Gog to give strength and health to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and for his speedy recovery from Covid.