Mysuru: The iconic Chamundeshwari Temple and its surrounding areas atop the Chamundi Hill resembled a fortress this morning with hundreds of Policemen including the Mounted Police deployed there to manage the crowd on the last Ashada Shukravara. In fact, at some places atop the Hill, there were more uniformed men than the devotees.

The Police action comes in the wake of a series of complaints by the devotees on the poor crowd management and the resultant chaos and confusion especially during the last three Ashada Fridays.

Star of Mysore had published a series of articles regarding poor facilities at the Hill Temple, the confusion and the lack of response from the Police and the District Administration.

For a change, it was good crowd management by the Police  and thousands of devotees were led to orderly queues with absolutely no chance of jumping the queues.

Orderly lines were witnessed at all the queues — Rs. 50, Rs. 300 and the VVIP queue. Apart from these queues, no devotee was allowed a direct entry to the temple and Mounted Police were seen driving away unruly devotees who tried to sneak inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, claiming their influence.

Today there were about 15,000 devotees atop the Hill in the morning. The fewer crowds were due to the Amavasya that will begin at 5 pm, heralding the arrival of Shravana season after Ashada.  So strict were the arrangements that even the media personnel had to wait to enter the temple with special passes.

Rituals inside the Chamundeshwari Temple began at 3.30 am and they included Mahanyasa Poorvaka Rudrabhisheka, Panchamrutha abhisheka, Sahasranaamarchane, Tripadi and Ashtothara. The rituals were led by temple Chief Priest Dr. Shashishekar Dikshit. The Goddess was dressed in Simha Vahini Alankara that was visually soothing for the devotees.

Among the VVIPs who came to the temple this morning were PWD Minister H.D. Revanna, Tourism Minister S.R. Mahesh, Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar, BJP stalwart K.S. Eshwarappa and MLA Ramdas.

A team of BJP Yuva Morcha activists led by State BJP General Secretary B.Y. Vijayendra climbed the steps and performed special pujas to the Goddess for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to become the PM again in 2019.