Devotee fears come true

Tirupati: The arrangements made by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD)?fell short yet again owing to an unprecedented surge of devotees to the holy hill shrine on the eve of Vaikunta Ekadasi.

The arrangements and preparedness of the TTD was put to the test and it became evident that the temple administration had not learnt any lessons from the past.

Chaos prevailed on the hilltop as well as on the footpath routes of Alipiri and Srivari Mettu as the curbs imposed by the TTD irked the visiting devotees.

With the quota of 25,000 passes fixed by the temple administration for the pilgrims trekking up the hills getting over much earlier than the TTD had anticipated, tens of thousands of devotees were left stranded.

Despite trekking up the hill, thousands of devotees were not able to get passes for darshan through the “Divya Darshan” mode. Heated arguments broke out between the devotees and the security personnel as well as the TTD staff along the footpath route.

Hundreds of devotees also staged a protest at the “Srivari Mettu” route, complaining about the poor amenities including no proper arrangements even for drinking water.

Meanwhile, the devotees who missed out on the passes staged a protest along with their families near the Vaikuntam queue complex atop Tirumala.

Angry devotees who were denied a darshan despite waiting for several hours raised slogans against the temple administration, strongly resenting the manner in which the temple administration had spread a “red carpet”, issuing thousands of passes to VIPs.

Meanwhile, several curbs including traffic curbs imposed by the TTD atop Tirumala created extreme inconveniences to the devotees. Barricades were erected all over the place, which irked not just the general devotees but the VIPs as well.

Ignoring the troubles faced by devotees due to the VIP passes, trustees of the TTD are reportedly angry at the “meagre number of passes and suite rooms” allotted to them.

It is learnt that TTD chairman K. Bapiraju was issued 1,000 VIP passes and 200 rooms on the Ekadasi eve. Members of the TTD trust board were issued 150 passes and 10 rooms each.