1.4L Ganesh idols this year: BGUS

Hyderabad: The Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi on Monday asserted that 1.4 lakh Ganesh idols will be installed in the city this year in the 10-day Ganeshutsav from September 7. It will end with the immersion programme on September 17 on Anant Chaturdashi; like every year, the idols will be immersed at Tank Bund.

The BGUS leaders, including president G Raghava Reddy, secretary Ravinuthala Shashidhar, Kirodimal Narsinghpuria, M Vaikuntham, and Sri Ram Vyas, addressed the media to announce details of the festival. They said this was the 45th year of mass celebration of Ganeshutsav by the cultural organisation. The members had started celebration with 1,400 idols in the 1980s; this year they expect 1.4 lakh pandals to be organised.

Reddy said the State government was cooperating with the samithi on organising meetings with officials of various departments. The leaders thanked CM A Revanth Reddy for giving the green signal for free power at pandals.

“We used to ask for preparatory meetings for years. Earlier governments did not do this, but this time, the government came forward and organised several meetings. We have been asking for free power for 20 years, but this time the CM allowed it. The festival celebrations will be taken up with devotion,” he said.

Narsinghpuria said he had been associated with the festival since 1980. “Nowhere in the world is a festival like this organised, as every organisation is associated with the festival. The situation in the city was worse than Bangladesh in those days, which resulted in more than half of the population in the Old City leaving the area. None but God Ganesh saved us to bring unity,” he said.

Shashidhar said just an intimation to the police was enough for the installation of the idols. The Utsav Samithi members would be available for 24 hours during the ten days at Baheti Bhavan. Two guests would be visiting the mass immersion.