All roads led to Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy Devasthanam at Vemulawada in Rajanna-Sircilla district as devotees from far-flung places, including A.P., Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, thronged the temple for Mahasivaratri jatara.
The jatara would be held on Friday, but the devotees started arriving at the temple on Thursday itself. They have occupied temporary shelters set up for them at the temple.
The celebrations begin from Thursday night after Nishipuja where pilgrims have the darshan of the presiding deities and offer kode mokku .
Apart from erecting temporary tents, the temple authorities have made special queue lines to help pilgrims offer kode mokku . In view of heavy pilgrim rush, the authorities have banned all the puja rituals and have only allowed laghu darshan of the presiding deities.
Meanwhile, the district administration and State Cultural Department have made elaborate arrangements for conducting cultural programmes to highlight the importance of Mahasivaratri. They have installed LED screens at several spots to facilitate pilgrims to watch the cultural programmes.
Collector Krishna Bhaskar and Superintendent of Police Vishwajit K. have inspected the temple shrine to make sure that all arrangements for sanitation and security were in place. The Collector said that they were taking the utmost care to ensure that there were no inconveniences to the visiting pilgrims. The Police Department has also ensured that enough personnel were deployed for bandobust.
Vemulawada legislator Ch. Ramesh Babu has personally been supervising the arrangements for the smooth conduct of the festival at the shrine. He inaugurated ‘anna daanam’ (free food) facility for the pilgrims here on Thursday.
The priests from TTD would present silk vastrams to the presiding deities on Friday.
