Tirupati Pilgrims Denied Entrance Halfway To the Top

The TTD EO's decision to limit the number of pilgrims via the divya darshanam programme to 15,000 a day has put several thousands of devotees who walked enormous distances between a rock and a hard place.

The devotees, who were issued tickets at the beginning of their journey uphill to the shrine, were later refused counters after having climbed a few hundreds of steps, leaving them unable to go forward or backward, without any provision to rest their weary bodies, or as to food or water.

Meanwhile, the decision has set off a "cold war" between EO L V Subramaniam and TTD Chairman Kanumuri Bapiraju, as Bapiraju maintains that no one has the right turn back devotees who who conduct their pilgrimage by foot, and that the EO's actions and his bias towards VIPs is tarnishing the reputation of the Devasthanam which is one of the world's premier pilgrim destinations.