Tirumala temple witnesses heavy rush

Tirupati, Oct 22: The Tirumala temple of Lord Venkateswara witnessed the heavy rush of pilgrims on Saturday.

The crowd was so heavy that the entire quota of 20,000 tickets for Divya darshanam were exhausted by 8 am.

The Vaikuntam complex was full of its capacity and the darshan lines spilled out to a couple of km on the road. Arrangements were made on a war footing to comfortably accommodate them at the open top galleries along the mada streets.

Tirupati (urban) SP Abhishek Mohanty deployed additional forces to assist the TTD staff in the regulation of crowd.

However there was no problem to the pilgrims with Rs. 300 special entry and divya darshan tokens who were allowed at the stipulated time as mentioned on their tickets.

The situation was similar at the TTD cottage allotment counters. Devotees were forced to spend arduous hours in securing accommodation.

TTD in-charge Executive Officer K.S. Srinivasa Raju appealed to the devotees to cooperate with the TTD and abide by the suggestions of the police.He attributed the surge in crowds to the weekends holidays that immediately followed Deepavali.