Tirupati: Devotees irked by advance issue of tokens

Tirupati: Swelling crowds at the counters set up for issuing of Vaikunta Dwara Darshan tokens to locals in the city forced the authorities to commence the issuing of tokens at 9 pm on Sunday against the scheduled time 9 am on Monday leaving hundreds of devotees who came after 9 in the morning today in lurch. The devotees started pouring in at the counters set up in five places in the city for issuing of tokens for Vaikunta Dwara Darshanam from evening of Sunday itself i.e. 15 hours ahead of the tokens issuing that was originally scheduled at 9 am on Monday.

In some counters located in the heart of city like Municipal Office, the locals who gathered for tokens entered into argument with the security staff for not allowing them in the queue line leading them to inform the higher-ups on the swelling crowds at the counters. The police authorities after inspecting some counters found that crowd which is steadily increasing may turn tough to control.

Tirupati Urban SP Ch Appala Naidu and TTD Chief Vigilance and Security Officer Gopinath Jatti after studying the ground situation decided to start the issuing of tokens ahead of the schedule time to avoid more gathering of people at the counters to unmanageable level and also keeping in view the soaring Covid cases in the city where the cases steadily increasing.

Accordingly, the issuing of tokens began at 9 Sunday night and went on till the allotted quota of 50,000 tokens exhausted within 12 hours i.e. before 9 am on Monday morning, the original scheduled time for the commencement of issuing of tokens. Hundreds of locals who arrived after 8 in the morning on Monday were disappointed as they could not get the tokens. At the Municipal Office where a counter was located, the local who came

for the tokens, staged a dharna after finding the counters closed. They criticised the TTD for not informing the advancement of the tokens issue through local channels. Many devotees including women and aged seething with anger slammed the TTD for not sticking its own time for issuing the tokens resulting in hundreds of locals unable to avail the tokens and wanted to issue at least 25,000 more tokens to the locals.

It may be noted here that TTD decided to provide Vaikunta Dwara Darshan to 50,000 locals and set up counters in five localities including Municipal Office, Ramachandra Pushkarini, MGM Municipal High School, MR Palli ZP High School and Jeeva Kona ZP High School and repeatedly announced that the tokens issuing will start at 9 am on Monday and also put up huge flexis informing the timing but dramatically changed it advancing the issuing of Dwara Darshanam tokens.