70,000 devotees throng Durga Temple

PNS|Vijayawada

Over 70,000 Bhavani devotees relinquished their Deeksha atop Indrakeeladri during the ongoing Bhavani Deeksha Viramana on the fourth day on Sunday. Firstly, the devotees took a holy dip in River Krishna and performed Giripradakshina by wearing traditional red robes. Later, they had darshan of goddess Kanaka Durga.

On the penultimate day of Deeksha Viramana, a large number of devotees from across Andhra Pradesh, mainly from the North Andhra region, flocked to the temple. Besides, pilgrims from Telangana and Tamil Nadu also arrived to relinquish Deeksha.

The devotees’ rush increased from the evening as they took time for Giri Pradakshina. Due to this, the devotees were allowed to have darshan till 12 midnight.

However, the number of devotees so far is lower than expected – nearly two lakh. Monday is the last day for Deeksha Viramana. The authorities had expected over seven lakh devotees to relinquish Deeksha Viramana and also made arrangements such as laddu prasadams and water packets.

Durga Temple EO D Bramarambha, Executive Engineers KVS Koteswara Rao, L Ramadevi and Vedic Committee members participated in the Giri Pradakshina. They inspected the arrangements provided for the Bhavani devotees.