Chandanotsavam, the annual festival of the presiding deity of Simhachalam hill shrine Sri Varaha Lakshmi Nrusimha Swamy, passed off without any major incident on Tuesday barring a few minor ones involving disruption of queue and a few devotees falling unconscious due to heat. An estimated 1.2 lakh devotees visited the temple on the occasion.
The annual festival began with hereditary trustee Pusapati Ananda Gajapati Raju offering silk robes to the Lord in the early hours. Endowments Minister P. Manikyala Rao and Minister for HRD Ganta Srinivasa Rao too offered silk robes to the presiding deity and had a darsan in the morning.
The 1,500-strong police force worked overtime to ensure smooth conduct of the darsan. But the force was put to test by the VVIP movement.
Despite, the police organising a separate team to take care of VVIPs, a few politicians landed with a cavalcade that caused some inconvenience to the police, the organisers, and devotees.
Mr. Srinivas Rao’s convoy comprised 21 cars and over 150 persons accompanied the minister. This was the time when some policemen had to be diverted from the general queue area and there was a line disruption problem and a near stampede was averted with the timely intervention of senior officers that included DCP (Law and Order) Trivikram Varma.
Queue disruption
Apart from that incident, there were a few other queue disruption problems. Though the flow of devotees was continuous they felt some pinch whenever a VVIP trooped in with his or her entourage, especially the devotees who were in the free darsan line and in Rs. 500 ticket line.
Shankar, a devotee from Vizianagaram, said that heat was another problem. “The organisers should have provided some kind of a shade and the ticket counters could have been managed better,” he said.
