Celestial Wedding Of Balkampet Yellamma Held

The ceremonial wedding of the goddess Balkampet Yellamma was organised on a grand scale today.

The celestial wedding was performed by the priests at 11:34 am in the Mukha Nakshatrayukta Abhijit lagnam.

Devotees thronged the temple in large numbers to watch the ceremony.

Endowment Minister Konda Surekha presented the deity a silk sari on behalf of the State government. Congress Hyderabad district in-charge minister Ponnam Prabhakar, GHMC Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi, other elected representatives and officials attended the celestial wedding.

Meanwhile, minister Ponnam Prabhakar and GHMC Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi turned furious with the temple authorities who they claimed showed negligence in receiving them and failed to follow the protocol norms.

A small scuffle took place resulting in the Mayor suffering minor injuries. This led to the dispute over the protocol.

Angered by the behaviour of the temple administrators and officials, Ponnam and the Mayor staged a brief protest at the temple. Later, the temple authorities expressed regret over the development, and convinced Ponnam and Vijayalakshmi to come inside the temple and witness the ceremony.

Women devotees too reportedly faced problems due to the police, who prevented the devotees from entering even though they had tickets for darsanam.

Konda Surekha also expressed dissatisfaction over the poor crowd management at the temple, and directed the officials to conduct an inquiry over the attitude of police who she said misbehaved with the devotees. She promised that action would be taken against those who were rude.

Meanwhile, Ponnam Prabhakar condemned reports that he had sulked over the attitude of the authorities.

"I have come here as a devotee of the goddess, and did not sulk at anyone. But the crowd control at the temple was poor. An IPS officer should have been deputed to control the crowd and to supervise the arrangements," Prabhakar said.