Heavy rush of devotees at Arasavalli temple

Srikakulam: Large number of devotees had darshan of the presiding deity at the Sun God temple at Arasavalli on Friday on the occasion of Rathasapthami.

Pontiff of Sarada Peetham, Sri Swathmanandendra Saraswathi Swamy, inaugurated the Rathasapthami festival by conducting Palabhishekham to the Lord in the early hours of Friday.

State Assembly Speaker Tammineni Sitaram, Deputy Chief Minister Dharmana Krishna Das, Minister for Animal Husbandry S Appala Raju, Rajya Sabha MP Mopidevi Venkata Ramana and other people's representatives coming from across the State had darshan of Sun God at the temple on the occasion.

However, it was alleged that excess number of VIP passes were issued crossing the set limit. Common devotees waiting in queue lines to have darshan of Lord Suryanarayana Swamy faced inconvenience at the temple on the festival day.

Those in free darshan queue lines had to wait for more than 5 hours to have darshan of the deity.