Darshan at Tirumala Temple Takes More Than 24 Hours

 Tirupati: Tirumala Temple of Lord Venkateswara witnessed massive crowds on Saturday due to a weekend coming during the summer vacation.

The Vaikuntam queue complex and Narayanagiri sheds remained packed with devotees seeking Sarva Darshan. The queue lines extended to about 2 km from Ring Road to Sila Thoranam.

Crowds of devotees built up further despite authorities of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) alerting the devotees that free darshan will take more than 24 hours.

Seeing the unprecedented crowds, TTD stopped permitting devotees into the queue lines from Saturday afternoon. TTD announced that devotees will be allowed for Sarva Darshan only from 6 a.m. on Sunday.

On Friday, 71,510 devotees had darshan of Lord Venkateswara Swamy. 43,199 devotees got tonsured. The Hundi offerings came to Rs 3.63 crore.

Devasthanams JEO Veera Brahmam and deputy EO Harindranath remained busy monitoring the situation and providing food, water and milk to devotees in the queue lines.