President Offers Prayers to Lord Venkateswara

Tirumala, 2 Sep 2017: His Excellency the Honourable President of India Sri 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 honourable governor of AP and TS Sri ESL Narasimhan and honourable CM of AP Sri N Chandrababu Naidu, he was welcomed by TTD EO Sri Anil Kumar Singhal, Tirumala JEO Sri KS Sreenivasa Raju and CVSO Sri 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 Sri Pasanth Kumar and daughter Ms 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 honourable President by TTD EO.

The other protocol VIPs who accompanied President included ministers of AP sri Acchennaidu, Sri Amarrnath Reddy, Sri Kala Venkat Rao.

HH Tirumala Pedda Jiyar Swamy, HH Chinna Jiyar swamy, DIG Sri Prabhakar Rao, District Collector Sri Pradyumna, temple DyEO Sri Kodanda Rama Rao, Reception DyEO Sri Harindranath, OSD Sri Lakshminarayana Yadav and other officials were also present.