the crowds were enormous and in election season, the politics over alleged mismanagement and poor arrangement for the pilgrims at Sabri Allah has taken centre stage over a lack. Pilgrims visited Sabri Allah yesterday and day before, as the auspicious season is nearing a close and there were several complaints over arrangements made for them. Many hundreds had to go through extreme difficulty in reaching the temple. The BJP has accused the LDF government in Kerala of being ill prepared and so has the Congress, including sharp criticism of the LDF government from the high profile Si Peru. My colleague Umar has the details. Once again, there was a heavy rush at the Sabri Mala Temple today, even as the Mandala Puja is expected to happen tonight. What we understand is that all through this 41 day period of the Mandala Puja that began on November 16th, we have been hearing these complaints of big rash and long hours of wait 10 to 12 hours that pilgrims had to wait in the queues as well. And what the authorities had done is that as against what was happening over the last week, more than one la people one la 7001 LA 9000 people who were at the pilgrimage centres, you know, just yesterday day before what they did was that on December 26th, the virtual booking was restricted to 64,000. December 27. The virtual booking was restricted to 70,000, with the spot bookings restricted to 15,000. As per the high court orders here in Kerala earlier, what we were seeing was that spot bookings were going up 30,000. And that was one of the reasons why we were seeing the unprecedented rush. People are talking about also women, Children and also very elderly people coming in for the DA. And because of that the pilgrimage that is one of course, from the PM to the Sanan itself and then the 18 steps, what is called the pair? All that was becoming quite quite a bit of time it was taking because of which there were delays. The authorities of in Kerala had said that they were providing biscuits and water and also trying to ensure that the crowd was managed in such a manner that there wouldn't be confusion. There would be a safe and smooth passage for the pilgrims. But Tamil Nadu BJP chief Anna Mala in fact has criticised both the Kerala government as well as the Tamil Nadu government for failing to ensure the safety of the pilgrims and they also said that you know not adequate arrangements. He said in fact that Kerala was unprepared and despite the fact that year after year there are pilgrims, this time they were unprepared and that there was zero crowd management. Earlier, we also saw Telangana, BJP chief and union minister Kishan Reddy making a similar criticism against the authorities in Kerala. But what I must point out is that in January once again we will see 80,000 bookings allowed in the virtual route as well, so hopefully everything goes off smoothly.
