Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Executive Officer Dr KS Jawahar Reddy IAS said that the devotees who have booked tickets in advance are allowed to the hill town during the Vaikunta Ekadasi festival.

He asserted that, "The temple body is strictly following the COVID-19 protocol and is giving top priority to the safety of the visiting devotees. TTD had to restrict the Vaikunta Ekadasi Darshan for only 35,000 devotees a day. TTD had issued two lakh tickets of Rs 300 special entry darshan in the view of 10 day Vaikunta Ekadasi festival."

He further added that, "TTD had also issuled 20,000 Srivari Darshan VIP tickets and all these darshan tickets were booked by devotees in a very less time."

He also said that the temple body is gearing up to issue 1 lakh Sarvadarshan tickets to the people of Tirupati on 24th December.

TTD EO appealed to the devotees not to come to Tirumala without darshan tickets and said that they are not going to allow those devotees with out valid darshan ticket to enter the hill town.

Devotees on a pilgrimage to Tirumala continued their protest for the second day on Wednesday. They are saying that they have come from far off places for darshan and TTD staffers cleared that the free darshan quota was exhausted for the next three days. Police and other officials kept their fuller efforts to pacify the devotees to call off their protests.