HANAMKONDA: Thousands of devotees who arrived at the historic Sri Bhadrakali temple for Navaratri celebrations on Friday were in for a rude shock. The BRS workers blocked the way into the temple as government chief whip Dasyam Vinay Bhaskar and his family were offering prayers inside the temple. This led to heated exchanges between them and the devotees.
The BRS workers had a free run of the temple. The Executive Officer (EO) and staff remained helpless as the BRS workers controlled the crowd. Devotees were forced to wait for more than one and a half hours in the queue lines for darshan because the BRS workers did not let the queue line move.
One of the devotees, Ponna Shiva Kumar, who came to Station Ghanpur for a special darshan, said in disgust that the temple may be handed over to the BRS on a permanent basis. “Let the government hand over the temple to the MLA’s supporters so that their leaders would not have any problem in getting darshan and doing pooja.”
He alleged that not only during Navaratri celebration, even on normal weekdays, the BRS workers would not permit anyone as if any MLAs and their families were inside offering poojas to the presiding deities.
Women devotees confronted the authorities on why they issued special darshan tickets when they could not allow them to offer puja. Thota Kalyani and her mother-in-law Saroja, annoyed with the temple staff for allowing party leaders, cornered them as to why they were causing