Governors Soundararajan, Dattatreya, CM KCR Visit Medaram

Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and Himachal Pradesh Governor Bandaru Dattatreya today paid visits to the famous biennial tribal festival of Sammakka and Saralamma at Medaram in Mulugu district of Telangana.

Accompanied by MP Santhosh Kumar, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao took a helicopter to reach the jathara site from his Erravalli farmhouse. Governors Soundararajan and Dattatraya arrived separately. Ministers Indrakaran Reddy, Errabelli Dayakar Rao and Satyavati Rathod, and local leaders and officials who were present at the site, received the CM and the Governors.

The two Governors and the Chief Minister attended the pujas at the "gaddes" of Sammakka and Saralamma, the presiding deities of the jathara. As a part of the rituals, the Governors offered prayers and weighed themselves in a scale against jaggery referred to as "bangaram".

Soundararajan later expressed her happiness at being able to have a darshan of the tribal goddesses, and said that tribals had always been close to her heart. She gushed that the Medaram fair was the biggest festival in Asia. "I wish all people well," she added.

Dayakar Rao said that as per KCR's directions, hassle-free darshan of the goddesses had been enabled for all the devotees, numbering in lakhs, at the jathara. The state government made all the necessary and possible arrangements, he said. Around 12,000 policemen had been deployed and about 300 CCTV cameras and 10 drone cameras had been installed as part of the security detail, he said. The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) was operating 4,000 buses to ferry people to and from Medaram, he added.

The four-day tribal festival began on Wednesday, and will conclude on Saturday. It is being attended by devotees from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.