Devotees queue up outside Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai on the occasion of New Year day on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: G. MOORTHY
Thousands of devotees visited the famous Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple on the New Year Day that both paid and free darshan queues were very long from early morning on Thursday.
The HR&CE department officials said that with the Sabarimala Ayyappa devotees visiting the shrine daily, the number of devotees had crossed the 50,000 since the season started about a month ago.
The shrine has been steadily witnessing more turnout on special occasions and Thursday being the first day of the year, the devotees had lined up from as early as 5 a.m.
Parking woes
The devotees coming from other cities and States had a tough time in parking their vehicles. Since there was no clear direction, the visitors from other States were clueless about the earmarked space, they claimed.
Similarly, it was a harrowing experience in dealing the auto rickshaw drivers as many of them fleeced the tourists coming from other towns.
Regular visitors to the Meenakshi Temple said that the officials should have arranged more number of staffs to handle the crowd. Knowing well that on the New Year Day, there would be huge turnout, the personnel manning the queue was very miniscule. There were wordy altercations, when a few of the self-appointed VVIPs violated the queue and entered the sanctum sanctorum, they added.
In other temples including Alagar Koil, Koodal Azhagar Temple, Thiruparankundram and among others, the devotees had darshan marking the English New Year.
There were special service and masses held in the churches in the city.
Published – January 01, 2026 09:03 pm IST
