The dawn of the New Year saw a surge in devotees visiting the temples in the city and the region, to make an auspicious beginning.
The Chamundeshwari Temple atop the Chamundi Hills, Lakshmi Venkataramanaswamy temple on the KRS Road, Yoga Narasimhaswamy temple at Vijayanagar, 101 Ganapathi temple at Agrahara etc saw a heavy turnout of devotees as also the Sri Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirantapatana.
KSRTC had introduced special services from the Lalitha Mahal palace grounds to the hill-top in view of the ban on private vehicles in anticipation of the rush. Nagaraj, a senior official in the temple management, said there was no let-up in the number of devout visiting the temple for darshan throughout the day.
Similarly, there was a surge in the number of people at the Yoga Narasimhaswamy temple in Vijayanagar with the queue spilling over to the main road.
Many of the devotees had lined up in front of the temple at the crack of dawn to beat the rush. Bhashyam Swami led the special prayers at 4 a.m. to the presiding deity of Yoga Narasimhaswamy which was embellished with flowers to mark the occasion. This was followed by distribution of laddus as prasad for the devotees. As many as 2 lakh laddus were prepared by the temple authorities and were distributed to the public.
