This temple town, which usually wakes up to Vedic hymns, on Friday woke up to protests by a section of devotees who also resorted to slogan-shouting in the early hours on the Supatham Marg at the massive Vaikuntam queue complex. The pilgrims raised slogans against the TTD management and denounced its apathy in addressing their problem. They questioned the propriety of the staff manning the Vaikuntam complex in not allowing them into the temple to perform the ‘Anga Pradakshinam' and fulfil their prayers even though they possessed authorised darshan tokens and had come to the complex in time.
The devotees lashed out at the management for subjecting them to difficulties for no fault of theirs. They maintained that even though they reached the Vaikuntam queue complex as early as 1.15 a.m., much ahead of the scheduled time of 2 a.m., they were denied entry to perform Anga Pradakshinam. They said that they were in all about 100 to 150 members and their repeated requests not only fell on deaf ears but they were forced to return without the darshan of the Lord.
Anga Pradakshinam (rolling over around the temple in wet clothes during the Suprabhatha Seva) is a vow made by devotees seeking divine intervention to bail them out when they are passing through troubled times in their life.
Bio-metric tickets
The TTD issues about 750 Anga Pradakshinam bio-metric tickets through bank counters and the devotees are asked to report at Supatham Marg at 2 a.m.
Meanwhile, temple sources attributed the reason to special rituals being organised inside the temple in connection with the Bhashyakarla Utsavams.
Things were no different even in the darshan lines meant for senior citizens and differently-abled devotees. Even though some devotees could make it to the entry point ahead of the scheduled time, they were not allowed to join the queues.
They were in fact forced to wait for long hours in the scorching sun until the turn of the next batch of pilgrims who were permitted into the temple after an interval of four hours.
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