Visakhapatnam: Thousands of devotees throng Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Simhachalam for Chandanotsavam

Thousands of devotees thronged Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Simhachalam to have ‘Nijaroopa darshanam’ (original form) of the deity on the occasion of ‘Chandanotsavam’, right from the early hours of Sunday. The crowd started arriving atop the hill before 2 a.m.

Thousands of devotees thronged Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Simhachalam to have ‘Nijaroopa darshanam’ (original form) of the deity on the occasion of ‘Chandanotsavam’, right from the early hours of Sunday. The crowd started arriving atop the hill before 2 a.m.

It’s only on this day of the year that the deity can be seen in His original form while for the rest of the year the idol would be covered with sandalwood paste. Hereditary Trustee of the temple Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju and his family were the first to have darshan, as per the temple tradition, around 3.30 a.m. Endowments Minister Kottu Satyanarayana presented ‘pattu vastrams’ to the deity, on behalf of the State government. TTD Chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy presented ‘pattu vastrams’ on behalf of the TTD.

Ministers Gudivada Amarnath and Botcha Satyanarayana, Mayor G. Hari Venkata Kumari, Anakapalli MP B.V. Satyavathi and MLAs Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar and A. Adeep Raj were among the VIPs, who had darshan of the deity.

Notwithstanding the pleasant weather, utter chaos prevailed, particularly in the queue lines arranged for protocol darshan, apparently, due to lack of coordination between different departments.

Though the authorities arranged barricades, and made arrangements for the orderly movement of devotees, the huge turnout of devotees, particularly in the VIP Protocol line, seems to have made them helpless. Devotees, who were held up for a couple of hours, lost their cool and picked up arguments with the Police and Endowments Department staff and officials. Some of them even complained to Mr. Botcha Satyanarayana.

The devotees, who had darshan in the ₹300 and ₹1,000 queue lines, seemed to be relatively happy though some of them complained that they had to wait for a couple of hours.

Head of Visakha Sri Sarada Peetham Sri Swaroopanandendra Swamy made no secret of his displeasure at the poor management of crowd by the authorities concerned, especially in the VIP protocol queue line. “There is no fulltime EO for such an important temple. VIP tickets seem to have been sold in large numbers. The queue lines were not moving for hours together, causing inconvenience to common devotees, who came with kids,” he told the media after coming out of the temple. He, however, said that he has nothing against the Jagan Mohan Reddy government as the Chief Minister was doing his best. It was for the officials to ensure proper arrangements. “My intention is only to bring the issue to the notice of the government, “ he added.