1.20 lakh ‘Vaikunta Dwara Darshan’ tokens exhausted in a whiff

Tokens for ten-day 'Vaikunta Dwara Darshan' at Tirumala temple exhausted quickly, leading to unfortunate stampede; authorities open counters early.

The tokens for the first three days of the ten-day ‘Vaikunta Dwara Darshan’ at Tirumala Sri Venkateswara temple got exhausted within hours of the opening of the counters, albeit after the unfortunate stampede in which six devotees breathed their last.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has been observing the Vaikunta Ekadasi event, falling on January 10 this year, in the form of a ten-day event in the recent years by keeping the sacred threshold ‘Vaikunta Dwaram’ open for ten days. Devotees consider it a ‘divine experience’ to walk through this threshold. This is based on the practice followed in Srirangam temple, which also helped spread the crowd for ten days.

The Slotted Sarva Darshan (SSD) tokens are normally issued at Srinivasam, Vishnu Nivasam and Bhudevi complexes in Tirupati. For the special occasion, the TTD opened counters in five more centres in the city viz., Indira Maidanam, Bairagipatteda, Jeevakona, M.R. Palle and Ramachandra Pushkarini, besides one at Tirumala for the benefit of the local residents.

A whopping 1.20 lakh tokens were meant to be distributed at these centres from 5 am on Jan 9 for darshan on Jan 10, 11 and 12, i.e., allowing 40,000 devotees on each day.

In view of the stampede-like situation, the authorities decided to open the counters by Wednesday night itself, instead of 5 am on Thursday, causing confusion. The centres were opened after the stampede and the 1.2 lakh tokens were exhausted within a few hours.

With no work on hand after the issue of tokens for the first three days, the TTD has decided to close down the centres for the next two days and open them up on January 12, for issue of tokens pertaining to January 13 darshan (one day in advance).

However, going by the past records, it has been amply established that devotees preferred to have darshan only on the first two days i.e., Vaikunta Ekadasi and Vaikunta Dwadasi, and swarmed the queue lines for the tokens for these days. Even last year, the token distribution centres painstakingly developed by the TTD across the city had fewer takers than expected.