VIJAYAWADA: President of India
Ramnath Kovind along with his family and entourage offered prayers in the temple of Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala on Saturday. The first citizen of India who was on a two day maiden visit to Tirumala followed the temple tradition. He first offered prayers in Bhu Varaha Swamy temple located adjacent to
Swami Pushkarini
and later reached Tirumala temple.
On his arrival at Mahadwaram along with
governor of AP
and TS ESL Narasimhan and Chief minister of AP N Chandrababu Naidu, he was welcomed by TTD Executive Officer (EO) Anil Kumar Singhal, Tirumala JEO KS Sreenivasa Raju and CVSO A Ravikrishna while the Veda pundits offered
Isthikaphal Swagatham
to the first citizen of the country with temple honours.
Later he offered prayers in front of Lord Venkateswara along with his spouse smt Savita Kovind, son Pasanth Kumar and daughter Swati. One of the chief priest's of the temple Dr AV Ramana Dikshitulu explained to the Governor the importance of jewels and of the presiding deity.
Later at Ranganayakula Mandapam, Vedasirvachanam was rendered and teertha prasadams, lamination photo of Lord and Sesha Vastram were presented to the President by TTD EO. The other protocol VIPs who accompanied President included ministers of AP K Acchennaidu, M Amarrnath Reddy, Kala Venkat Rao.
Tirumala Pedda Jiyar Swamy, Chinna Jiyar swamy,
DIG Prabhakar Rao
, District Collector Pradyumna, temple DyEO Kodanda Rama Rao, Reception DyEO Harindranath, OSD
Lakshminarayana Yadav
and other officials were also present.
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