Bappa sees record 29-hour-12-minute immersion journey

A lack of discipline displayed by the police and various Ganpati mandals in the city during visarjan stretched the total time taken for the immersion to a record 29 hours and 12 minutes between Monday and TuesdayLONG ROAD The procession for the Akhil Mandai Ganesh Mandal at Belbaug chowk Members of this mandal alleged that the policemen handling the visarjan were inexperienced PicShashank Sane Not only were there several delays and conflicts during the prolonged procession there was also a major break in tradition this year with the police unwittingly changing the customary sequence of immersionsSong and dance Though the police had expressly forbidden mandals to invite dholtasha troupes during the visarjan procession several mandals did so anyway PicShashank SaneThe delay began early as the manache Ganpatis took nine hours for visarjan at the very beginning of Monday According to custom the morning slot is set aside for the five most prestigious Ganpati mandals in the cityThe first manache Ganpati Kasba Ganesh Mandal entered the procession at 1030 am on Monday and the last manache mandal Kesari Wada finished at 710 pmAfter this delays kept piling up until the procession finally ended at 342 pm yesterday with the Trimurti Ganesh Mandal performing visarjan at the Panchaleshwar ghat on the Mutha riverThroughout the mandals and police kept blaming each other instead of working togetherMandal workers alleged that the police officials deployed for immersion were new and were neither aware of how to manage the procession nor of the traditional sequence of mandals entering Laxmi Road through Belbaug Chowk for visarjanEvery year the manache Ganpatis are the first to pass Laxmi Road before heading to the ghats for immersion The late afternoon and evening slots are reserved for certain other mandals the last of which is Babugenu Mandal which is then followed by three eminent mandals mdash Bhau Rangari Akhil Mandai and Dagdusheth HalwaiBreak from traditionHowever this year after Babugenu crossed the chowk instead of Bhau Rangari the police allowed other mandals to follow instantly causing chaos The three major mandals took seven hours in the procession eventually completing visarjan the next morning around 710 amNot only did the policersquos indifference lead to this break in tradition mandals have complained that the police could not even ensure smooth movement in the procession this yearldquoUnlike in the past there is barely any momentum in the immersion procession Normally the police ensures that mandals and dholtasha pathaks keep a steady pace and a consistent gap between each other so that they do not take too much time This year there was absolutely no police presence on Laxmi Roadrdquo said the president of one of the mandals which had to wait for several hours for its chanceAlthough Police Commissioner Satish Mathur himself was overseeing the situation at Belbaug Chowk the police force was not able to ensure smooth movement leading to huge gaps between mandals leading to further delays When he was asked about the efficiency of the police during visarjan Commissioner Mathur refused to commentBlaming mandalsThe police meanwhile blamed the mandals for not following instructions Even though the police had expressly forbidden mandals from inviting dholtasha pathaks to the procession many did end up calling troupes to perform creating holdups for the rest of the processionThe Akhil Mandai Mandal was amongst those that had invited dholtasha groups and witnessed a major conflict because of thisAt Nimbalkar Talim Chowk Mandairsquos dholtasha pathak was starting to move ahead while the mandal followed behind But at Bajirao Road the police began pushing in another mandal between the two halves Angry Mandai karyakartas then held up procession for almost an hour as they argued with the policeldquoHow can they allow any other mandal to push into the middle of our group on Laxmi road This is unacceptable The police officials who are handling this yearrsquos procession are inexperienced and do not even care enough to follow the traditions the city has followed for yearsrdquo said Pratap Pardeshi a senior member associated with Akhil Mandai MandalThis reporter witnessed another heated moment on Laxmi Road around 230 am on Tuesday when four to five members of Shreeram dholtasha pathak rushed into a crowd of devotees waiting for Dagdusheth Ganpati to pass The dholtasha performers then manhandled a few youths in the crowd alleging they had heard them use abusive languageWhile the altercation led to a fair bit of panic in the crowd neither the dholtasha pathak nor Bhau Rangari Mandal which had invited the pathak arrived at the scene to resolve the issue2739The number of mandals that took part in the immersion procession on Monday and Tuesday