SRIKAKULAM: At least 1.5 lakh devotees visited Arasavalli Sun Temple on the annual celestial festival Surya Jayanthi popularly known as Ratha Saptami on Sunday.
The devotees from various parts of the Telugu states and neighbouring Odisha and West Bengal had the Nijarupa Darshanam of Lord Sri Suryanarayana Swamy. Utter chaos prevailed due to a lack of coordination between endowments, revenue and police officials in controlling the huge rush of devotees.
Though the officials arranged six separate Q lines including VVIP, Donors, Rs 500, Rs 300, Rs 100 and free darshan the coordination and lack of information between the police and endowment officials caused severe inconvenience to the devotees.
The devotees are forced to wait at least two to six hours for darshan. Several devotees who came to darshan on donor passes expressed their displeasure over the temple officials for the least priority given to the donors. Therefore, the district administration is forced to cancel all the passes and allow free darshan in all Q lines.
The Ratha Saptami celebrations began at Sri Suryanarayana Swamy temple at Arasavalli as per temple traditions and customs on Saturday midnight.
Agriculture Minister Kinjarapu Atchennaidu launched the celebrations by presenting the silk robes along with Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, and Srikakulam MLA Gondu Sankar.
Later, the temple priests performed milk anointing by Dwadasa Harati, and Maha Nivedhana to the lord Sri Suryanarayana Swamy. On this occasion, he accorded a traditional welcome from the temple priests and endowments officials.
Ministers Vangalapudi Anitha, and Kondapalli Srinivas, Vizianagaram MP Kalisetti Appalanaidu, district collector Swapnil Dinkar, Visakhapatnam range DIG Gopinath Jetty, SP Maheswara Reddy, MLAs, MLCs, district officials attended along with their families.
Ratha Saptami is the only day in a year to give Nija Rupa Darshan (without any ornaments decoration) of Sri Suryanarayana Swamy. The devotees believed that they would get good health, wealth, and prosperity in education, business, and jobs if they had the darshan of lord Sri Suryanarayana Swamy. Therefore, devotees thronged the temple on Sunday.