mid 2,000-strong police surveillance, devotees in multiples of thousands who occupied every inch of space on rooftops, behind barricades, and lanes and by-lanes witnessed the annual Sirimanotsavam of Sri Pydithalli Ammavaru in Vizianagaram and prayed in reverence on Tuesday evening.
The utsav passed off peacefully except for a protest by sanitation workers at the temple against the police highhandedness for a few minutes. Superintendent of Police Navdeep Singh Gewal supervised the security arrangements.
Since early hours in the morning, devotees stood in queue for long hours to have darshan of the goddess.
Among them a 70-year-old man Botcha Appanna of Devupalli village in Gajapthinagaram mandal said that he had been witnessing the utsav every year since his childhood.
Civil Aviation Minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Eluru MP Maganti Babu, and Endowments Minister Manikyala Rao were among other VIPs too offered prayers. At the scheduled time for the ‘Sirimaanu’ (ceremonial post) to be on the move at 3 p.m., people began pouring in on all directions to the temple.
However, it was delayed as the over 40-feet-long post was carted from the chief priest Thallapudi Bhaskara Rao’s house at Hukumpeta to the temple at 2 p.m. and fixed it on a cart that has a winch. Priest Bhaskara Rao, who was attired in plain silk clothes and red turban and believed that he represents the goddess on this day, was seated on a specially made ‘Aasanam’ (wooden seat) at one end of the post. Later, devotees set it in motion.
Ahead of it, tastefully decorated fishermen’s net (Paaladhara), Anjali Ratham and Iravatham (replica of an elephant) moved. Devotees standing on roof-tops rained bananas as an offering to the goddess with devotion. The ceremonial trips from the temple to the fort that began at 4.30 p.m. ended at 6 p.m.
Hereditary trustees of the temple Ashok Gajapathi Raju and others witnessed the utsav from atop the fort.
