Top 7 mandals delay visarjan

5 Ganesh mandals of honour and popular Dagdushet, Mandai mandals take up to 3 hrs more in immersion procession than last year; workers blame police for not allowing traditional instruments after midnight

The Ganapati immersion procession in the city lasted 27 hours this year. The city's five mandals of honour and the popular Dagdushet Halwai Ganapati Mandal and Akhil Mandai Mandal contributed to a delay of two to three hours.




SO LONG, bappa! The Shrimant Dagdushet Halwai Ganapati reaches
Samadhan Chowk (top); foreign tourists enjoy the visarjan procession.
Pics/Nikhil Ghorpade

While mandal workers blamed the police for their adamant stand of taking action against mandals that violated police instructions at night, the police denied the allegation.

The Kasba Ganapati Mandal, which is the first in the honours list, began the procession on time, but the immersion of its idol took nearly 16 hours, two hours more than last year. The other four prestigious mandals also finished late, getting done with visarjan only by 7 pm.

'Unrealistic' demand
According to some mandal workers, the police demands were unrealistic."The police threatened us that they would file cases against us if we didn't meet the immersion deadline. The police should have considered the minimum time required to carry out the immersion, but instead they chose to threaten us when a meeting was conducted with them before the festival," said a mandal official, requesting anonymity. "But we decided to go at our own pace, without bothering about the police action planned against us."

Gramdaivat Kasba Ganapati Mandal's trustee Anil Panse said, "The delay was not on our part. Our mandal had reached the immersion point on time, as promised to the police. We had reduced the number of dhol-tasha teams last year because of the swine flu scare, but this year there wasn't any need to reduce the teams."

President of Tulshibaug Ganapati Mandal -- the fourth mandal of honour -- Nitin Pandit said, "We agree that the procession got delayed, but our mandal being among the top five Ganapati mandals, people throng to take darshan of Ganapati in large numbers. Also, a safe and peaceful procession was our priority, not time."

Treasurer of Dagdushet Ganapati Mandal Mahesh Suryavanshi said, "The delay of almost two hours happened because the police adamantly stopped activists from playing the traditional instruments after 12 am. None of the previous police commissioners ever took such an unfortunate decision. The delay took place because we had to call back the dhol-tasha teams to play."

President of Akhil Mandai Mandal Anna Thorat said, "There was proper understanding between the mandals, but the decision by the police to not allow us to play traditional instruments led to the delay. The police could have avoided the unfortunate thing."

Police Commissioner Meeran Chadha Borwankar credited the success of Ganeshotsav to the 8,000 constables who remained alert and vigilant on the roads. "Police constables ensured a safe and secure Ganeshotsav in the city," Borwankar said.

Except at Shivajinagar and Chinchwad police stations, there were no cases registered against Ganesh mandals in the city.