Chaos at Simhachalam as thousands witness Chandanotsavam

Visakhapatnam: Chaotic conditions prevailed at the Simhachalam temple amid inadequate arrangements while a large crowd was present to witness the start of the annual Chandanotsavam festival in the wee hours of Sunday.

Devotees were severely inconvenienced due to large-scale messing-up of the normal arrangements. Several VIPs were stranded as the temple officials failed to maintain the protocol. Allegations were also that over 10,000 “VIPs” showed up and officials were busy arranging facilities for the VIPs as also to officials’ own friends and relatives.

The Sri Sarada Peetham Seer Swami Swaroopanandenrda Maha Swamy criticised the officials by saying this was the worst- ever festival in the history of Simhachalam.

Endowment minister Kottu Satyanarayana, who offered silk robes to the deity on behalf of the government, had heated arguments with the devotees standing in queue and they shouted slogans against the government. He told them that they did not come as per the time allotted to them and that this resulted in a jam.

The minister was also seen shouting at the police officials for allowing the devotees in at the “wrong” time. Local devotees, who attend the festival every year, said the police, endowment, revenue and other department officials have learnt nothing from the past and again caused trouble to them. “Many of us are senior citizens,” they pointed out.

A senior official said there was a lack of coordination between the various departments. Devotees were seen frequently arguing with the police for the hours-long delay in moving the queue forward.

Temple officials said the collector and police commissioner gave top priority for darshan of over 10,000 so-called VIPs, severely inconveniencing the common folk.

“Ordinary people did not get a chance to enter the sanctum sanctorum. We saw the face of the deity from outside and returned from there,’’ he said.

Over 2,000 police personnel were deployed for security and traffic arrangements, but the situation often went out of control as normal schedules went haywire. Queues from the base to the hill moved at a snail’s pace. It took about five hours for devotees to return to the base of the hills.

The devotees started arriving on the hill from 3am. The hereditary trustee and former central minister Ashok Gajapath Raju and his family members arrived around 3am for worship of the lord and they offered silk robes to adorn the deity. By then, the entire parking lot on the hill was packed and there was a swarm of people around the temple.

An angry devotee from MVP Colony, S Satyanarayana, said the devotees had to wait in queues for hours as the police, revenue and endowment departments joined hands and gave priority to their relatives and family members for the darshan.
 
The officials failed to ensure supply of  drinking water to devotees and there were no proper toilet facilities.

“It took five hours for me to get down from the hill as there was no bus. I walked down,’’ said SV Suhasini, a resident of East Point Colony, Visakhapatnam.

The angry devotees sharply questioned minister Botsa Satyanarayana and local YSRC leaders for the poor arrangements.

There was no crowd for the last two years due to the Covid-19, but this year, there were unexpectedly large crowds from the two Telugu states as well as from Chhattisgarh and south Odisha.

Child rights activist Sitarm Gondu said there were no facilities for children. Officials failed to arrange space for breastfeeding centers.

“We were shocked to see children waiting for hours in the queue without water or milk. Their parents exhausted their stock by waiting in the lines for a long time,’’ said Gondu Sitaram, member of the state commission for protection of child rights, AP.

Help came from the Simhachalam Bhajan Mandali of Satya Seva Organisation, whose volunteers distributed buttermilk to people standing in the queue and to those stranded in the bus.