Over 1.5 lakh devotees attend Chandanotsavam at Simhachalam temple

Visakhapatnam: It was a largely hassle-free and peaceful ‘nijarupa darshan' — viewing the true, unadorned form of the presiding deity when the thick sandalwood paste is removed, revealing the idol's original form — for over 1.5 lakh devotees at the Lord Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Simhachalam on Monday. Keeping in mind last year's fatal accident in which seven devotees were killed when a newly constructed wall in the queue-lines collapsed, nearly 3,000 police personnel were deployed to ensure order. The coordination among all departments ensured that the annual Chandanotsavam festival passed off in a peaceful manner without causing inconvenience to devotees. Devotees settled down in the queue lines from Sunday evening itself at the 11th century hilltop shrine dedicated to Lord Vishnu's Varaha-Narasimha avatar. The idol combines the faces of both Varaha and Narasimha, and remains covered in sandalwood paste year-round, except during the annual Chandanotsavam when the presiding deity's ‘nijarupa darshan' is unveiled. Though the temple authorities put 40,000 darshan tickets of different denominations on sale, both online and offline, the crowd was huge, with majority going for the free darshan after failing to get the tickets.The first three hours in the morning saw mostly VIPs, including ministers and MLAs, along with their families going in for darshan. Goa governor Pusapati Ashok Gajapati Raju, who is the hereditary trustee of the temple and belongs to the royal family of Vizianagaram, presented silk robes to the deity when the temple opened in the wee hours of Monday. Later, home minister Vangalapudi Anita handed over silk clothes on behalf of state government. Several ministers and MLAs had darshan, including minister Kollu Ravindra, MPs CM Ramesh, Kalisetti Appala Naidu, and Sribharat, and MLAs Vamsikrishna, Panchakarla Ramesh Babu, and Sundarapu Vijaya Kumar.APSRTC deployed a number of special buses to carry devotees to the temple from various parts of the city and nearby districts. "The temple management may not have arranged sufficient number of tickets but made good arrangements for devotees compared to previous years. We had darshan in two hours, but had to wait in the queue-lines from Sunday night itself," Ramu Naidu, a devotee from Chodavaram area, said.