The festive offering of laddoo of Balapur Ganesh idol was auctioned for ₹24,60,000. V. Laxma Reddy, a farmer from the Balapur village made the winning bid. “I have seen the auction over the past so many years. I am delighted that I could make the successful bid this year,” said Mr. Reddy after the bidding process.
The auction of the laddoo by the Balapur Ganesh Utsava Samiti has become an annual ritual from the time it was started in 1994 when a farmer of the village Kolan Mohan Reddy made the winning bid with ₹450. 28 years later, most of the other bidders included realtors and businessmen.
“This is a farmers’ village. Now most of the villagers have sold their land. Only some farmers have retained small farms,” says Devendra Amma sitting in her grandfather’s house, a patwari of the village house.
Now, the participants of auction come from different parts of the state as well as neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. In 2019, the laddoo was sold for ₹17.6 lakhs to Kolan Rami Reddy. Last year, it was auctioned for ₹ 18.9 lakhs.
