Overview
- Devotees thronged major Vaishnavite temples from pre-dawn as the Uttara Dwara and Paramapada Vasal were opened at Tirumala, Srirangam, Chennai, Vijayawada, Yadadri, Bhadrachalam, Mysuru and other centres.
- At Tirumala, the 10-day Vaikunta Dwara Darshan began with token-based entry for the first three days and walk-in Sarva Darshan permitted from January 2 to 8 under extensive crowd, food and police arrangements.
- Using its new e-dIP random allotment, TTD reported 92,221 tokens from 1,153,689 Andhra Pradesh registrations and 49,127 from 607,995 Telangana registrations, with smaller allotments to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and other states.
- Srisailam started free sparsha darshan for local Chenchu tribals, providing touch-access through a designated entry with identification support from the ITDA.
- Traditional rites featured the Swarna Ratham procession at Tirumala, Chakrasnanam set for Vaikunta Dwadasi, and visits by Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, Union Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu and film and sports personalities.