Tirumala pilgrimage always a prioritized issue

Tirupati: Whatever the agitation may be and whoever may have organized it, the Tirumala pilgrimage has its own importance and special exemption. Either the local people or the State-level organisations, everyone has specific vision on Tirumala pilgrims and on Lord Balaji. With lot of efforts by TTD officials, the Samaikyandhra Joint Action Committee exempted Tirumala from agitations. Perhaps the dip in Hundi collections at Tirumala temple has alerted the Samaikyandhra activists.

The exemption to Tirumala pilgrims is really a big relief to them and every pilgrim feels happy with such exemptions. Whether it was during the two-day bandh call by Samaikyandhra JAC in last week of August or the proposed bandh call given by government officers JAC, at every time, the Tirumala issue was on top priority.

With the request of TTD officials, the officers JAC has decided to postpone the proposed 48-hour bandh call indefinitely. The TTD worried a lot with the decision of Officers JAC over the bandh call of Tirupati and Tirumala and reacted immediately to remove the apprehensions among the pilgrims by having a dialogue with the convener of Officers JAC and leaders of RTC Employees JAC from exempting the Tirumala stretch from bandh call.

The government employees and activists of various JACs of Samaikyandhra were serious on making success each and every protest in Tirupati, but never created problems to Tirumala pilgrims. Neither the government employees nor Samaikyandhra activists wants to attract bad name and so always gave relief to pilgrims. For instance, though the Samaikyandhra JAC besieged the entire Tirupati town for two days last month, they exempted the Tirumala pilgrims by showing two alternative roads to reach Tirumala safely and allowed TTD to operate its own bus services to ferry pilgrims from railway station to Alipiri link bus station. This time, the Officers JAC postponed the entire protest in the interests of pilgrims. This decision may be due to the efforts of TTD, but also the result of the human gestures of JACs.

The withdrawal of proposed protest by Officers JAC was widely welcomed, especially in advance to the scheduled annual Brahmotsavams of Tirumala temple. Already the TTD is worrying a lot with the constraints to pilgrims with the ongoing Samaikyandhra agitations and complete halt of RTC bus services and the recent protest call by Officer JAC became an additional problem. However, the TTD released a big sigh of relief due to the success of their dialogues with the representatives of Officer JAC.