Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ujjaini Mahakali Temple in Secunderabad on Tuesday, as part of his two-day tour of Telangana. He spent a few minutes inside the temple with his cavalcade arriving at 10.11 a.m. and exiting by 10.22 a.m. as some party activists shouted ‘Modi, Modi, Modi’ slogans.
Residents of Tobacco Bazaar, Kalasiguda, General Bazaar, and other areas surrounding the 200-year-old temple found themselves locked up as security officials barricaded and cordoned off the temple in the morning.
“I don’t know who is visiting the temple. Why there is so much security,” asked Thulasi Goud who was outside her home in Kalsiguda. The BJP workers who learnt about the PM’s visit had to make do by standing outside the entrance arch of the temple on James Street.
The Ujjaini Mahakali temple is a relic of a time when pandemics were the order of the day. It was in 1813, when Suriti Appaiah, a soldier in the ranks of the British Army was posted to Ujjain and there was an outbreak of cholera that carried off hundreds of people. He stayed at the Ujjain Mahakali temple and made a vow that he will consecrate an idol of the Goddess in Secunderabad if the epidemic subsides. On his return, he fulfilled his vow and installed a wooden idol in July 1815 inside a small mud wall temple.
Every year, during Bonalu Jatara in the month of Aashad (Aashadam) the family members of Appaiah welcome lakhs of devotees on the third Sunday of the month for the festival. About 60 years ago, the wooden idol was replaced by a stone idol.
