The annual Vinayaka Chaturthi festivities will commence on September 17 with installation of around 1 lakh idols in the city and culminate with immersion of idols on September 27.
Speaking to presspersons here on Wednesday, Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi General Secretary Bhagwanth Rao said that as a precursor to the festivities, a ‘Hindu Chaitanya Sabha’ to be addressed by Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, Sadhvi Hemalatha Shastry from Mathura and Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swamy would be held at NTR Stadium on September 13.
He charged the police of going back on conditions agreed to at a meeting few years ago and harassing the mandap organisers to seek permissions. “It was agreed that the organisers will only intimate the police without the need for permission. Permission is something we will not accept”, he said.
The utsav samithi had already advised the organisers against using DJs for playing film and western music during the festivities but the police was using this pretext to stop using public address system itself, he said. “We have sought time to meet Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao to explain the arrangements and also the confusions being created by the police,” Mr.Bhagwanth Rao said.
The centralised idol immersion procession would head for Hussain Sagar lake, the utsav samithi members maintained, while rejecting the proposals mooted by the Chief Minister on creating a pond at Indira Park for immersion purposes.
International President of Vishva Hindu Parishad G. Raghava Reddy said that each year issues were raised on the size of idols and immersion in water bodies amid charges of pollution. “The pollution of water bodies is due to industrial and other dumping and it has been shown that idol immersion was not actually contributing to it,” he said.
