Heavy rush at Tirumala on Vaikunta Ekadasi

Tirupati: Tirumala witnessed an unprecedented crowd on Monday on the auspicious day of Vaikuntha Ekadasi. Thousands of devotees were seen waiting in queue lines for having a darshan of Lord Venkateswara.

It is estimated that a total of two lakh devotees have come to Tirumala. While about over one lakh had a darshan on Monday, the others will get a chance for darshan on Tuesday.

All queue lines and sheds in four Mada streets were packed with pilgrims. Braving chill weather, thousands of devotees, including women, children and aged, patiently waited for long time in the queue lines to have Vaikunta Dwara Darshan of the lord.

As usual, VIPs, including ministers and MLAs from both the Telugu states and top bureaucrats, thronged the hill shrine to have the Vaikunta Dwara Darshan during wee hours of Monday. Many VIPs reached Tirumala on Sunday night and stayed in the TTD guesthouses .

According to TTD official sources, more than 3,000 VIPs from across the country had Srivari Vaikunta Dwara Darshan between 1.15 am an 3.45 am. Later, the TTD has allowed common devotees for Vaikunta Uttaradwara Darshan.

On the early hours of Monday, AP High Court Chief Justice Jitendra Kumar Maheshwari, Central minister G Kishan Reddy, Deputy Chief Ministers Pushpa Srivani, K NarayanSwamy, AP Endowment Minister Velampalli Srinivas, Minister Botcha Sathyanarayan, Sankar Narayana, Peddi Reddy RamchandraReddy, Mekapati Gautham Reddy, AP government Whip Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, TTD board Chairman YV Subba Reddy, MP Vemi Reddy Prabhakar Reddy and TDP MLA and former minister K Atchannaidu had a darshan of the Lord Venkateswara through Vaikuntha Uttaradwaram.

Similarly, politicians from Telangana, Ministers KTR and Harish Rao, Thalasani Srinvas Yadav, Malla Reddy as well as MLAs, MLCs had Srivari darshan.

The TTD had made elaborate arrangements for devotees like supplying free food, beverages coffee, tea, milk and drinking water on hourly basis.

Hundreds of Srivari Sevaks were deployed in Narayana Giri queue line sheds and other areas to supply the free food and beverages to devotees continuously.

In terms of security aspects, the TTD vigilance department and Tirupati Urban Police made wide security arrangements and deployed more than 1500 police personnel of all cadres for bandobust in Tirumala shrine.

TTD CVSO Gopi Nath Jetti as well as Tirupati Urban SP Dr Gajarao Bhupal are jointly supervising the security arrangements at four mada streets, Vaikuntam queue complexes.

Earlier, TTD Board Chairman YV Subba Reddy, EO Anil Kumar Singhal, Additional EO AV Dharma Reddy inspected the queue complexes and interacted with devotees over the facilities provided by the TTD.